UC-NRLF 


B    M    1D1    713 


HILLSBORO    PEOPLE 


By 
DOROTHY  (  ANFIELD 

Author  of  "The  Sqt  irrel-Cage,"  etc. 


WITH    OCCASIONAL   VERMONT   VERSES 
BY 

SARAH  N.  CLEGHORN 


NEW  YORK 
HENRY    HOLT   AND   COMPANY 


BY 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


The  contents  of  this  volume  were  copyrighted  separately  as  follows : 
Vermont,  copyright,  1913,  by  The  Century  Co.  Hemlock  Mountain,  copy 
right,  1910,  by  The  Congregationalist.  At  the  Foot  of  Hemlock  Mountain, 
copyright,  1908,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons.  Petunias-Thai's  for  Remem. 
brance,  copyright,  1912,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons.  The  Heyday  of  the 
Blood,  copyright,  1909,  by  The  Frank  A.  Munsey  Company.  As  a  Bird 
out  of  the  Snare,  copyright,  1908,  by  Houghton,  Mifflin  and  Company. 
The  Bedquilt,  copyright,  1906,  by  Harper  &  Brothers.  Portrait  of  a 
Philosopher,  copyright,  1911,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons.  Flint  and  Fire, 
copyright,  1915,  by  Harper  &  Brothers.  A  Saint's  Hours,  copyright  1908 
by  The  Ridgway  Company.  In  Memory  of  L.  H.  W.,  as  "  The  Hill'sboro 
Shepherd,"  copyright,  1912,  by  The  Ridgway  Company.  In  New  New 
England,  copyright,  1910,  by  The  Frank  A.  Munsey  Company  The  De 
liverer,  copyright,  1908,  by  New  England  Magazine  Company.  Noctes  Am- 
brosianae,  copyright,  1908.  by  Houghton,  Mifflin  and  Company.  Hillsboro's 
Good  Luck,  copyright,  1908.  by  Houghton,  Mifflin  and  Company.  Salem 
Hills  to  Ellis  Island,  copyright,  1912,  by  The  Ridgway  Company.  Avunculus, 
copyright,  1909,  by  The  Ridgway  Company.  Finis,  as  "  The  End  "  copy 
right,  1908,  by  The  Phillips  Publishing  Co.  A  Village  Munchausen,  copy 
right,  1908,  by  The  Frank  A.  Munsey  Company.  The  Artist,  copyright,  1911, 
by  Charles  Scribner's  Sous.  A  Drop  in  the  Bucket,  copyright,  1913  by  Good 
Housekeeping  Magazine.  Piper  Tim,  copyright,  1908,  by  New  England 
Magazine  Company.  Adeste  Fideles  I  as  "  Oh  Come,  All  Ye  Faithful !  " 
copyright,  1911,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


March,  1915 


THE   QUINN    A    BODEN    CO.  PRE8» 
RAHWAr,    N.    J. 


VERMONT 


Wide  and  shallow  in  the  cowslip  marshes 
Floods  the  freshet  of  the  April  snow. 

Late  drifts  linger  in  the  hemlock  gorges, 

Through  the  brakes  and  mosses  trickling  slow 

Where  the  Mayflower, 
Where  the  painted  trillium,  leaf  and  blow. 

Foliaged  deep,  the  cool  midsummer  maples 
Shade  the  porches  of  the  long  white  street; 

Trailing  wide,  Olympian  elms  lean  over 

Tiny  churches  where  the  highroads  meet. 

Fields  of  fireflies 
Wheel  all  night  like  stars  among  the  wheat. 

Blaze  the  mountains  in  the  windless  autumn 

Frost-clear,  blue-nooned,  apple-ripening  days  ; 

Faintly  fragrant  in  the  farther  valleys 

Smoke  of  many  bonfires  swells  the  haze; 

Fair-bound  cattle 
Plod  with  lowing  up  the  meadowy  ways. 

Roaring  snows  down-sweeping  from  the  uplands 
Bury  the  still  valleys,  drift  them  deep. 

Low  along  the  mountain,  lake-blue  shadows, 
Sea-blue  shadows  in  the  hollows  sleep. 

High  above  them 
Blinding  crystal  is  the  sunlit  steep. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

VERMONT  (Poem) v 

HEMLOCK  MOUNTAIN  (Poem) 2 

AT  THE  FOOT  OF  HEMLOCK  MOUNTAIN*      ...  3 

PETUNIAS — THAT'S  FOR  REMEMBRANCE       ...  19 

THE  HEYDAY  OF  THE  BLOOD   ......  37 

As  A  BIRD  OUT  OF  THE  SNARE      .               .       .       .  51 

THE  BEDQUILT  .       .   ' 67 

PORTRAIT  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER  4 79 

FLINT  AND  FIRE       .  •    ..      / 99 

A  SAINT'S  HOURS  (Poem)     .       .       .       .       .       .122 

IN  MEMORY  OF  L.  H..  W, 123 

IN  NEW  NEW  ENGLAND  .       .       .      ..       .       .       .139 

THE  DELIVERER  .                      165 

NOCTES  AMBROSIAN.E  (Poem)       .....  186 

HILLSBORO'S  GOOD  LUCK  . 187 

SALEM  HILLS  TO  ELLIS  ISLAND  (Poem)        ,       .       .  207 

AVUNCULUS .       .       .  209 

BY  ABANA  AND  PHARPAR  (Poem)       .       .       .       .  232 

FINIS    .•       .       .       .    -  .       .       .       ...       .  233 

A  VILLAGE  MUNCHAUSEN 251 

THE  ARTIST   - 265 

WHO  ELSE  HEARD  IT?  (Poem) 278 

A  DROP  IN  THE  BUCKET 279 

THE  GOLDEN  TONGUE  OF  IRELAND  (Poem)  .       .       .  298 

PIPER  TIM *  299 

ADESTE  FIDELES! 32  q 


HEMLOCK  MOUNTAIN 

By  orange  grove  and  palm-tree,  we  walked  the  southern 

shore, 

Each  day  more  still  and  golden  than  was  the  day  before. 
That  calm  and  languid  sunshine !    How  faint  it  made  us  grow 
To  look  on  Hemlock  Mountain  when  the  storm  hangs  low ! 

To  see  its  rocky  pastures,  its  sparse  but  hardy  corn, 
The  mist  roll  off  its  forehead  before  a  harvest  morn ; 
To  hear  the  pine-trees  crashing  across  its  gulfs  of  snow 
Upon  a  roaring  midnight  when  the  whirlwinds  blow. 

Tell  not  of  lost  Atlantis,  or  fabled  Avalon ; 
The  olive,  or  the  vineyard,  no  winter  breathes  upon ; 
Away  from  Hemlock  Mountain  we  could  not  well  forego, 
For  all  the  summer  islands  where  the  gulf  tides  flow. 


HILLSBORO    PEOPLE 


AT  THE  FOOT  OF  HEMLOCK 
MOUNTAIN 

"In  connection  with  this  phase  of  the  problem  of  transportation 
it  must  be  remembered  that  the  rush  of  population  to  the  great  cities 
is  no  temporary  movement.  It  is  caused  by  a  final  revolt  against 
that  malignant  relic  of  the  dark  ages,  the  country  village,  and  by  a 
healthy  craving  for  the  deep,  full  life  of  the  metropolis,  for  contact 
with  the  vitalizing  stream  of  humanity."— PRITCHELL'S  "Hand 
book  of  Economics,"  page  247. 

SOMETIMES  people  from  Hillsboro  leave  our  forgotten 
valley,  high  among  the  Green  Mountains,  and  "  go  down 
to  the  city,"  as  the  phrase  runs.  They  always  come  back 
exclaiming  that  they  should  think  New  Yorkers  would 
just  die  of  lonesomeness,  and  crying  out  in  an  ecstasy  of 
relief  that  it  does  seem  so  good  to  get  back  where  there 
are  some  folks.  After  the  desolate  isolation  of  city 
streets,  empty  of  humanity,  filled  only  with  hurrying 
ghosts,  the  vestibule  of  our  church  after  morning  service 
fills  one  with  an  exalted  realization  of  the  great  numbers 
of  the  human  race.  It  is  like  coming  into  a  warmed  and 
lighted  room,  full  of  friendly  faces,  after  wandering  long 
by  night  in  a  forest  peopled  only  with  flitting  shadows. 
In  the  phantasmagoric  pantomime  of  the  city,  we  forget 
that  there  are  so  many  real  people  in  all  the  world,  so 
diverse,  so  unfathomably  human  as  those  who  meet  us 
in  the  little  post-office  on  the  night  of  our  return  to  Hills 
boro. 

Like  any  other  of  those  gifts  of  life  which  gratify  in- 

3 


4  HILL,Sk()RO  PEOPLE 

satiable  cravings  of  humanity,  living  in  a  country  village 
conveys  a  satisfaction  which  is  incommunicable.  A  great 
many  authors  have  written  about  it,  just  as  a  great  many 
authors  have  written  about  the  satisfaction  of  being  in 
love,  but  in  the  one,  as  in  the  other  case,  the  essence  of  the 
thing  escapes.  People  rejoice  in  sweethearts  because  all 
humanity  craves  love,  and  they  thrive  in  country  villages 
because  they  crave  human  life.  Now  the  living  spirit 
of  neither  of  these  things  can  be  caught  in  a  net  of  words. 
All  the  foolish,  fond  doings  of  lovers  rnay  be  set  down 
on  paper  by  whatever  eavesdropper  cares  to  take  the 
trouble,  but  no  one  can  realize  from  that  record  anything 
of  the  glory  in  the  hearts  of  the  unconscious  two.  All 
the  queer  grammar  and  insignificant  surface  eccentric 
ities  of  village  character  may  be  ruthlessly  reproduced 
in  every  variety  of  dialect,  but  no  one  can  guess  from  that 
record  the  abounding  flood  of  richly  human  life  which 
pours  along  the  village  street. 

This  tormenting  inequality  between  the  thing  felt  and 
the  impression  conveyed  had  vexed  us  unceasingly  until 
one  day  Simple  Martin,  the  town  fool,  who  always  says 
our  wise  things,  said  one  of  his  wisest.  He  was  lounging 
by  the  watering-trough  one  sunny  day  in  June,  when  a 
carriage-load  of  "  summer  folk  "  from  Windfield  over 
the  mountain  stopped  to  water  their  horses.  They  asked 
him,  as  they  always,  always  ask  all  of  us,  "  For  mercy's 
sake,  what  do  you  people  do  all  the  time,  away  off  here, 
so  far  from  everything."^ 

Simple  Martin  was  not  irritated,  or  perplexed,  or  ren 
dered  helplessly  inarticulate  by  this  question,  as  the  rest 
of  us  had  always  been.  He  looked  around  him  at  the 
lovely,  sloping  lines  of  Hemlock  Mountain,  at  the  Necron- 


AT  THE  FOOT  OF  HEMLOCK  MOUNTAIN       5 

sett  River  singing  in  the  sunlight,  at  the  familiar,  friendly 
faces  of  the  people  in  the  street,  and  he  answered  in  as 
tonishment  at  the  ignorance  of  his  questioners,  "Do? 
Why,  we  jes'  live! " 

We  felt  that  he  had  explained  us  once  and  for  all.  We 
had  known  that,  of  course,  but  we  hadn't  before,  in  our 
own  phrase,  "  sensed  it."  We  just  live.  And  sometimes 
it  seems  to  us  that  we  are  the  only  people  in  America  en 
gaged  in  that  most  wonderful  occupation.  We  know,  of 
course,  that  we  must  be  wrong  in  thinking  this,  and  that 
there  must  be  countless  other  Hillsboros  scattered  every 
where,  rejoicing  as  we  do  in  an  existence  which  does  not 
necessarily  make  us  care-free  or  happy,  which  does  not 
in  the  least  absolve  us  from  the  necessity  of  working 
hard  (for  Hillsboro  is  unbelievably  poor  in  money),  but 
which  does  keep  us  alive  in  every  fiber  of  our  sympathy 
and  thrilling  with  the  consciousness  of  the  life  of 
others. 

A  common  and  picturesque  expression  for  a  common 
experience  runs,  "  It's  so  noisy  I  can't  hear  myself 
think."  After  a  visit  to  New  York  we  feel  that  its  in 
habitants  are  so  deafened  by  the  constant  blare  of  con 
fusion  that  they  can't  feel  themselves  live.  The  steady 
sufferers  from  this  complaint  do  not  realize  their  condi 
tion.  They  find  it  on  the  whole  less  trouble  not  to  feel 
themselves  live,  and  they  are  most  uneasy  when  chance 
forces  them  to  spend  a  few  days  (on  shipboard,  for  in 
stance)  where  they  are  not  protected  by  ceaseless  and 
aimless  activity  from  the  consciousness  that  they  are 
themselves.  They  cannot  even  conceive  the  bitter-sweet, 
vital  taste  of  that  consciousness  as  we  villagers  have  it, 
and  they  cannot  understand  how  arid  their  existence 


6  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

seems  to  us  without  this  unhurried,  penetrating  realiza 
tion  of  their  own  existence  and  of  the  meaning  of  their 
acts.  We  do  not  blame  city  dwellers  for  not  having  it, 
we  ourselves  lose  it  when  we  venture  into  their  maelstrom. 
Like  them,  we  become  dwarfed  by  overwhelming  num 
bers,  and  shriveled  by  the  incapacity  to  "  sense "  the 
humanity  of  the  countless  human  simulacra  about  us. 
But  we  do  not  stay  where  we  cannot  feel  ourselves  live ! 

[We  hurry  back  to  the  shadow  of  Hemlock  Mountain, 
feeling  that  to  love  life  one  does  not  need  to  be  what  is 
usually  called  happy,  one  needs  only  to  live. 

It  cannot  be,  of  course,  that  we  are  the  only  community 
to  discover  this  patent  fact ;  but  we  know  no  more  of  the 
others  than  they  of  us.  All  that  we  hear  from  that  part 
of  America  which  is  not  Hillsboro  is  the  wild  yell  of  ex 
citement  going  up  from  the  great  cities,  where  people 
seem  to  be  doing  everything  that  was  ever  done  or 
thought  of  except  just  living.  City  dwellers  make  money, 
make  reputations  (good  and  bad),  make  museums  and 
subways,  make  charitable  institutions,  make  with  a  hys 
teric  rapidity,  like  excited  spiders,  more  and  yet  more 
complications  in  the  mazy  labyrinths  of  their  lives,  but 
they  riever  make  eacj^  others'  acquaintances  .  .  .  and 
that  is  all  that  is  worth  doing  in  the  world. 

We  who  live  in  HillsBoro  know  that  they  are  to  be 
pitied,  not  blamed,  for  this  fatal  omission.  We  realize 
that  only  in  Hillsboro  and  places  like  it  can  one  have 
"  deep,  full  life  and  contact  with  the  vitalizing  stream 
of  humanity."  We  know  that  in  the  very  nature  of 
humanity  the  city  is  a  small  and  narrow  world,  the  village 
a  great  and  wide  one,  and  that  the  utmost  efforts  of 
city  dwellers  will  not  avail  to  break  the  bars  of  the  prison 


AT  THE  FOOT  OF  HEMLOCK  MOUNTAIN       7 

where  they  are  shut  in,  each  with  his  own  kind.  They 
may  look  out  from  the  windows  upon  a  great  and  varied 
throng,  as  the  beggar  munching  a  crust  may  look  in  at  a 
banqueting  hall,  but  the  people  they  are  forced  to  live 
with  are  exactly  like  themselves;  and  that  way  lies  not 
only  monomania  but  an  ennui  that  makes  the  blessing 
of  life  savorless. 

If  this  does  not  seem  the  plainest  possible  statement  of 
fact  take  a  concrete  instance.  Can  a  banker  in  the  city 
by  any  possibility  come  to  know  what  kind  of  an  indi 
vidual  is  the  remote  impersonal  creature  who  waits  on 
him  in  a  department  store?  Most  bankers  recognize  with 
a  misguided  joy  this  natural  wall  between  themselves  and 
people  who  are  not  bankers,  and  add  to  it  as  many  stones 
of  their  own  quarrying  as  possible;  but  they  are  not  shut 
off  from  all  the  quickening  diversity  of  life  any  more 
effectually  than  the  college-settlement,  boys'  Sunday- 
school,  brand  of  banker.  The  latter  may  try  as  hard  as 
he  pleases,  he  simply  cannot  achieve  real  acquaintance 
ship  with  a  "  storekeeper,"  as  we  call  them,  any  more  than 
the  clerk  can  achieve  real  acquaintanceship  with  him. 
Lack  of  any  elements  of  common  life  form  a?  impassable 
a  barrier  as  lack  of  a  common  language,  whejgas  with  us, 
in  Hillsbdro  all  the  life  we  have  is  common.  Everyone 
Is~~rieeded  to  live  it. 

There  can  be  no  city  dweller  of  experience  who  does 
not  know  the  result  of  this  herding  together  of  the  same 
kind  of  people,  this  intellectual  and  moral  inbreeding. 
To  the  accountant  who  knows  only  accounts,  the  world 
comes  to  seem  like  one  great  ledger,  and  account-keeping 
the  only  vital  pursuit  in  life.  To  the  banker  who  knows 
only  bankers,  the  world  seems  one  great  bank  filled  with 


8  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

money,  accompanied  by  people.  The  prison  doors  of 
uniformity  are  closed  inexorably  upon  them. 

And  then  what  happens?  Why,  when  anything  goes 
wrong  with  their  trumpery  account  books,  or  their  trashy 
money,  these  poor  folk  are  like  blind  men  who  have  lost 
their  staves.  With  all  the  world  before  them  they  dare 
not  continue  to  go  forward.  We  in  Hillsboro  are  sorry 
for  the  account-keepers  who  disappear  forever,  fleeing 
from  all  who  know  them  because  their  accounts  have 
come  out  crooked,  we  pity  the  banker  who  blows  out  his 
brains  when  something  has  upset  his  bank;  but  we  can't 
help  feeling  with  this  compassion  an  admixture  of  the  ex 
asperated  impatience  we  have  for  those  Prussian  school 
boys  who  jump  out  of  third-story  windows  because  they 
did  not  reach  a  certain  grade  in  their  Latin  examinations. 
Life  is  not  accounts,  or  banks,  or  even  Latin  examina 
tions,  and  it  is  a  sign  of  inexperience  to  think  it  so.  The 
trouble  with  the  despairing  banker  is  that  he  has  never 
had  a  chance  to  become  aware  of  the  comforting  vastness 
of  the  force  which  animates  him  in  common  with  all 
the  rest  of  humanity,  to  which  force  a  bank  failure  is  no 
apocalyptic  end  of  Creation,  but  a  mere  incident  or  trial 
of  strength  like  a  fall  in  a  slippery  road.  Absorbed  in 
his  solitary  progress,  the  banker  has  forgotten  that  his 
business  in  life  is  not  so  much  to  keep  from  falling  as  to 
get  up  again  and  go  forward. 

If  the  man  to  whom  the  world  was  a  bank  had  not 
been  so  inexorably  shut  away  from  the  bracing,  tonic 
shock  of  knowing  men  utterly  diverse,  to  whom  the  world 
was  just  as  certainly  only  a  grocery  store,  or  a  cobbler's 
bench,  he  might  have  come  to  believe  in  a  world  that  is 
none  of  these  things  and  is  big  enough  to  take  them  all 


AT  THE  FOOT  OF  HEMLOCK  MOUNTAIN       9 

in;  and  he  might  have  been  alive  this  minute,  a  credit  to 
himself,  useful  to  the  world,  and  doubtless  very  much 
more  agreeable  to  his  family  than  in  the  days  of  his  blind 
arrogance. 

The  pathetic  feature  of  this  universal  inexperience 
among  city  dwellers  of  real  life  and  real  people  is  that  it  is 
really  entirely  enforced  and  involuntary.  At  heart  they 
crave  knowledge  of  real  life  and  sympathy  with  their 
fellow-men  as  starving  men  do  food.  In  Hillsboro  we 
explain  to  ourselves  the  enormous  amount  of  novel- 
reading  and  play-going  in  the  great  cities  as  due  to  a  per 
verted  form  of  this  natural  hunger  for  human  life.  If 
people  are  so  situated  they  can't  get  it  fresh,  they  will 
take  it  canned,  which  is  undoubtedly  good  for  those  in 
the  canning  business ;  but  we  feel  that  we  who  have  better 
food  ought  not  to  be  expected  to  treat  their  boughten 
canned  goods  very  seriously.  We  can't  help  smiling 
at  the  life-and-death  discussions  of  literary  people 
about  their  preferences  in  style  and  plot  and  treat 
ment  .  .  .  their  favorite  brand  on  the  can,  so  to 
speak. 

To  tell  the  truth,  all  novels  seem  to  us  badly  written, 
they  are  so  faint  and  faded  in  comparison  to  the  brilliant 
colors  of  the  life  which  palpitates  up  and  down  our  vil 
lage  street,  called  by  strangers,  "  so  quaint  and  sleepy- 
looking."  What  does  the  author  of  a  novel  do  for  you, 
after  all,  even  the  best  author?  He  presents  to  you 
people  not  nearly  so  interesting  as  your  next-door  neigh 
bors,  makes  them  do  things  not  nearly  so  exciting  as 
what  happened  to  your  grandfather,  and  doles  out  to  you 
in  meager  paragraphs  snatches  of  that  comprehending 
and  consolatory  philosophy  of  life,  which  long  ago  you 


io  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

should  have  learned  to  manufacture  for  yourself  out  of 
every  incident  in  your  daily  routine.  Of  course,  if  you 
don't  know  your  next-door  neighbors,  and  have  never 
had  time  to  listen  to  what  happened  to  your  grandfather, 
and  are  too  busy  catching  trains  to  philosophize  on  those 
subjects  if  you  did  know  them,  no  more  remains  to  be 
said.  By  all  means  patronize  the  next  shop  you  see  which 
displays  in  its  show  windows  canned  romances,  adven 
tures,  tragedies,  farces,  and  the  like  line  of  goods.  Live 
vicariously,  if  you  can't  at  first  hand;  but  don't  be  an 
noyed  at  our  pity  for  your  method  of  passing  blindfold 
through  life. 

And  don't  expect  to  find  such  a  shop  in  our  village. 
To  open  one  there  would  be  like  trying  to  crowd  out  the 
great  trees  on  Hemlock  Mountain  by  planting  a  Noah's- 
Ark  garden  among  them.  Romances,  adventures,  trage 
dies,  and  farces  .  .  .  why,  we  are  the  characters  of 
those  plots.  Every  child  who  runs  past  the  house  starts 
a  new  story,  every  old  man  whom  we  leave  sleeping  in 
the  burying-ground  by  the  Necronsett  River  is  the  ending 
of  another  ...  or  perhaps  the  beginning  of  a  sequel. 
Do  you  say  that  in  the  city  a  hundred  more  children  run 
past  the  windows  of  your  apartment  than  along  our  soli 
tary  street,  and  that  funeral  processions  cross  your  every 
walk  abroad?  True,  but  they  are  stories  written  in  a 
tongue  incomprehensible  to  you.  You  look  at  the  covers, 
you  may  even  flutter  the  leaves  and  look  at  the  pictures, 
but  you  cannot  tell  what  they  are  all  about.  You  are 
like  people  bored  and  yawning  at  a  performance  of  a 
tragedy  by  Sophocles,  because  the  actors  speak  in  Greek. 
So  dreadful  and  moving  a  thing  as  a  man's  sudden  death 
may  happen  before  your  eyes,  but  you  do  not  know 


AT  THE  FOOT  OF  HEMLOCK  MOUNTAIN  n 

enough  of  what  it  means  to  be  moved  by  it.  For  you  it  is 
not  really  a  man  who  dies.  It  is  the  abstract  idea  of  a 
man,  leaving  behind  him  abstract  possibilities  of  a  wife 
and  children.  You  knew  nothing  of  him,  you  know  noth 
ing  of  them,  you  shudder,  look  the  other  way,  and  hurry 
along,  your  heart  a  little  more  blunted  to  the  sorrows  of 
others,  a  little  more  remote  from  your  fellows  even  than 
before. 

All  Hillsboro  is  more  stirred  than  that,  both  to  sym 
pathy  and  active  help,  by  the  news  that  Mrs.  Brownell  has 
broken  her  leg.  It  means  something  unescapably  definite 
to  us,  about  which  we  not  only  can,  but  must  take  action. 
It  means  that  her  sickly  oldest  daughter  will  not  get  the 
care  she  needs  if  somebody  doesn't  go  to  help  out;  it 
means  that  if  we  do  not  do  something  that  bright  boy  of 
hers  will  have  to  leave  school,  just  when  he  is  in  the  way 
of  winning  a  scholarship  in  college ;  it  means,  in  short,  a 
crisis  in  several  human  lives,  which  by  the  mere  fact  of 
being  known  calls  forth  sympathy  as  irresistibly  as  sun 
shine  in  May  opens  the  leaf  buds. 

Just  as  it  is  only  one  lover  in  a  million  who  can  con 
tinue  to  love  his  mistress  during  a  lifetime  of  absolute 
separation  from  her,  so  it  is  one  man  in  a  million  who 
can  continue  his  sympathy  and  interest  in  his  fellow-men 
without  continual  close  contact  with  them.  The  divine 
feeling  of  responsibHity  for  the  well-being  of  others  is 
diluted  and  washed  away  in  great  cities  by  the  overwhelm 
ing  impersonal  flood  of  vast  numbers;  in  villages  it  is 
strengthened  by  the  sight,  apparent  to  the  dullest  eyes, 
of  immediate  personal  and  visible  application.  In  other 
words,  we  are  not  only  the  characters  of  our  unwritten 
stories,  but  also  part  authors.  Something  of  the  final  out- 


12  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

come  depends  upon  us,  something  of  the  creative  instinct 
of  the  artist  is  stirred  to  life  within  every  one  of  us 
however  unconscious  of  it  in  our  countrified  simplicity 
we  may  be.  The  sympathy  we  feel  for  a  distressed 
neighbor  has  none  of  the  impotent  sterility  of  a  reader's 
sympathy  for  a  distressed  character  in  a  book.  There 
is  always  a  chance  to  try  to  help,  and  if  that  fail,  to  try 
again  and  yet  again.  Death  writes  the  only  Finis  to  our 
stories,  and  since  a  chance  to  start  over  again  has  been 
so  unfailingly  granted  us  here,  we  cannot  but  feel 
that  Death  may  mean  only  turning  over  another 
page. 

I  suppose  we  do  not  appreciate  the  seriousness  of  fic 
tion-writing,  nor  its  importance  to  those  who  cannot  get 
any  nearer  to  real  life.  And  yet  it  is  not  that  we  are 
unprogressive.  Our  young  people,  returning  from  college, 
or  from  visits  to  the  city,  freshen  and  bring  up  to  date  our 
ideas  on  literature  as  rigorously  as  they  do  our  sleeves 
and  hats;  but  after  a  short  stay  in  Hillsboro  even  these 
conscientious  young  missionaries  of  culture  turn  away 
from  the  feeble  plots  of  Ibsen  and  the  tame  inventions 
of  Bernard  Shaw  to  the  really  exciting,  perplexing, 
and  stimulating  events  in  the  life  of  the  village 
grocer. 

In  "  Ghosts,"  Ibsen  preaches  a  terrible  sermon  on  the 
responsibility  of  one  generation  for  the  next,  but  not  all 
his  relentless  logic  can  move  you  to  the  sharp  throb  of 
horrified  sympathy  you  feel  as  you  see  Nelse  Pettingrew's 
poor  mother  run  down  the  street,  her  shawl  flung  hastily 
over  her  head,  framing  a  face  of  despairing  resolve, 
such  as  can  never  look  at  you  out  of  the  pages  of  a  book. 
Somebody  has  told  her  that  Nelse  has  been  drinking  again 


AT  THE  FOOT  OF  HEMLOCK  MOUNTAIN     13 

and  "  is  beginning  to  get  ugly."  For  Hillsboro  is  no 
model  village,  but  the  world  entire,  with  hateful  forces 
of  evil  lying  in  wait  for  weakness.  Who  will  not  lay 
down  "  Ghosts  "  to  watch,  with  a  painfully  beating  heart, 
the  progress  of  this  living  "  Mrs.  Alving  "  past  the  house, 
leading,  persuading,  coaxing  the  burly  weakling,  who 
will  be  saved  from  a  week's  debauch  if  she  can  only  get 
him  safely  home  now,  and  keep  him  quiet  till  "  the  fit 
goes  by." 

At  the  sight  everybody  in  Hillsboro  realizes  that  Nelse 
"  got  it  from  his  father,"  with  a  penetrating  sense  of  the 
tragedy  of  heredity,  quite  as  stimulating  to  self-control 
in  the  future  as  Ibsen  is  able  to  make  us  feel  in  "  Ghosts." 
But  we  know  something  better  than  Ibsen,  for  Mrs.  Pet- 
tingrew  is  no  "  Mrs.  Alving."  She  is  a  plain,  hard- 
featured  woman  who  takes  in  sewing  for  a  living,  and 
she  is  quite  unlettered,  but  she  is  a  general  in  the  army  of 
spiritual  forces.  She  does  not  despair,  she  does  not  give 
up  like  the  half-hearted  mother  in  "  Ghosts,"  she  does  not 
waste  her  strength  in  concealments ;  she  stands  up  to  her 
enemy  and  fights.  She  fought  the  wild  beast  in  Nelse's 
father,  hand  to  hand,  all  his  life,  and  he  died  a  bet 
ter  man  than  when  she  married  him.  Undaunted,  she 
fought  it  in  Nelse  as  a  boy,  and  now  as  a  man;  and  in 
the  flowering  of  his  physical  forces  when  the  wind  of 
his  youth  blows  most  wildly  through  the  hateful 
thicket  of  inherited  weaknesses  she  generally  wins  the 
battle. 

And  this  she  has  done  with  none  of  the  hard,  consistent 
strength  and  intelligence  of  your  make-believe  heroine  in 
a  book,  so  disheartening  an  example  to  our  faltering  im 
pulses  for  good.  She  has  been  infinitely  human  and 


14  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

pathetically  fallible;  she  has  cried  out  and  hesitated  and 
complained  and  done  the  wrong  thing  and  wept  anc1 
failed  and  still  fought  on,  till  to  think  of  her  is,  for  the 
weakest  of  us,  like  a  bugle  call  to  high  endeavor.  Nelse  is 
now  a  better  man  than  his  father,  and  we  shut  up 
"  Ghosts"  with  impatience  that  Ibsen  should  have  selected 
that  story  to  tell  out  of  all  the  tales  there  must  have  been 
in  the  village  where  he  lived. 

Now  imagine  if  you  can  ...  for  I  cannot  even  faintly 
indicate  to  you  .  .  .  our  excitement  when  Nelse  begins  to 
look  about  him  for  a  wife.  In  the  first  place,  we  are 
saved  by  our  enforced  closeness  to  real  people  from  wast 
ing  our  energies  in  the  profitless  outcry  of  economists, 
that  people  like  Nelse  should  be  prohibited  from  having 
children.  It  occurs  to  us  that  perhaps  the  handsome  fel 
low's  immense  good-humor  and  generosity  are  as  good 
inheritance  as  the  selfishness  and  cold  avarice  of  priggish 
young  Horace  Gallatin,  who  never  drinks  a  drop.  Per 
haps  at  some  future  date  all  people  who  are  not  perfectly 
worthy  to  have  children  will  be  kept  from  it  by  law.  In 
Hillsboro,  we  think,  that  after  such  a  decree  the  human 
race  would  last  just  one  generation;  but  that  is  not  the 
point  now.  The  question  is,  will  Nelse  find  a  wife 
who  will  carry  on  his  mother's  work,  or  will  he 
not? 

If  you  think  you  are  excited  over  a  serial  story  be 
cause  you  can't  guess  if  "  Lady  Eleanor  "  really  stole  the 
diamonds  or  not,  it  is  only  because  you  have  no  idea  of 
what  excitement  is.  You  are  in  a  condition  of  stagnant 
lethargy  compared  to  that  of  Hillsboro  over  the  question 
whether  Nelse  will  marry  Ellen  Brownell,  "  our  Ellen," 
or  Flossie  Merton,  the  ex- factory  girl,  who  came  up  from 


AT  THE  FOOT  OF  HEMLOCK  MOUNTAIN     15 

Albany  to  wait  at  the  tavern,  and  who  is  said  to  have  a 
taste  for  drink  herself. 

Old  Mrs.  Perkins,  whom  everybody  had  thought  sunk 
in  embittered  discontent  about  the  poverty  and  isolation 
of  her  last  days,  roused  herself  not  long  ago  and  gave 
Ellen  her  cherished  tortoise-shell  back-comb,  and  her 
pretty  white  silk  shawl  to  wear  to  village  parties;  and 
racked  with  rheumatism,  as  the  old  woman  is,  she  says 
she  sits  up  at  night  to  watch  the  young  people  go  back 
from  choir  rehearsal  so  that  she  can  see  which  girl  Nelse 
is  "  beauing  home."  Could  the  most  artfully  contrived 
piece  of  fiction  more  blessedly  sweep  the  self -centered 
complainings  of  old  age  into  generous  and  vitalizing  in 
terest  in  the  lives  of  others  ? 

As  for  the  "  pity  and  terror,"  the  purifying  effects  of 
which  are  so  vaunted  in  Greek  tragedies,  could  ^schylus 
himself  have  plunged  us  into  a  more  awful  desolation  of 
pity  than  the  day  we  saw  old  Squire  Marvin  being  taken 
along  the  street  on  his  way  to  the  insane  asylum?  All  the 
self-made  miseries  of  his  long  life  were  in  our  minds, 
the  wife  he  had  loved  and  killed  with  the  harsh  violence 
of  a  nature  he  had  never  learned  to  control,  the  children 
he  had  adored  unreasonably  and  spoiled  and  turned 
against,  and  they  on  him  with  a  violence  like  his  own, 
the  people  he  had  tried  to  benefit  with  so  much  egotistic 
pride  mixed  in  his  kindness  that  his  favors  made  him 
hated,  his  vanity,  his  generosity,  his  despairing  outcries 
against  the  hostility  he  had  so  well  earned  ...  at  the 
sight  of  the  end  of  all  this  there  was  no  heart  in  Hills- 
boro  that  was  not  wrung  with  a  pity  and  terror  more 
penetrating  and  purifying  even  than  Shakespeare  has 
made  the  centuries  feel  for  Lear. 


i6  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

Ah,  at  the  foot  of  Hemlock  Mountain  we  do  not  need 
books  to  help  us  feel  the  meaning  of  life! 

Nor  do  we  need  them  to  help  us  feel  the  meaning  of 
death.  You,  in  the  cities,  living  with  a  feverish  haste 
in  the  present  only,  and  clutching  at  it  as  a  starving  man 
does  at  his  last  crust,  you  cannot  understand  the  com 
forting  sense  we  have  of  belonging  almost  as  much  to 
the  past  and  future  as  to  the  present.  Our  own  youth 
is  not  dead  to  us  as  yours  is,  from  the  lack  of  anything 
to  recall  it  to  you,  and  people  we  love  do  not  slip  quickly 
into  that  bitter  oblivion  to  which  the  dead  are  consigned 
by  those  too  hurried  to  remember.  They  are  not  i£- 
membered_perfum:toril3L.f or  Jjieir  "^gpoiqiialities  "  which 
are  carved  on  their  tombstones,  but  all  the  quaint  and 
dear  absurdities  which  make  up  personality  are  em 
balmed  in  the  leisurely,  peaceable  talk  of  the  village,  still 
enriched  by  all  that  they  brought  to  it.  We  are  not  afraid 
of  the  event  which  men  call  death,  because  we  know  that, 
in  so  far  as  we  have  deserved  it,  the  same  homely  im 
mortality  awaits  us. 

Every  spring,  at  the  sight  of  the  first  cowslip,  our  old 
people  laugh  and  say  to  each  other,  "  Will  you  ever  forget 
how  Aunt  Dorcas  used  to  take  us  children  out  cowslip- 
ping,  and  how  she  never  thought  it  '  proper '  to  lift  her 
skirt  to  cross  the  log  by  the  mill,  and  always  fell  in  the 
brook?  "  The  log  has  moldered  away  a  generation  ago, 
the  mill  is  only  a  heap  of  blackened  timbers,  but  as  they 
speak,  they  are  not  only  children  again,  but  Aunt  Dorcas 
lives  again  for  them  and  for  us  who  never  saw  her  .  .  . 
dear,  silly,  kind  old  Aunt  Dorcas,  past-mistress  in  the 
lovely  art  of  spoiling  children.  Just  so  the  children  we 
have  spoiled,  the  people  we  have  lived  with,  will  continue 


AT  THE  FOOT  OF  HEMLOCK  MOUNTAIN     17 

to  keep  us  living  with  them.  We  shall  have  time  to  grow 
quite  used  to  whatever  awaits  us  after  the  tangled  rose 
bushes  of  Hillsboro  burying-ground  bloom  over  our 
heads,  before  we  shall  have  gradually  faded  painlessly 
away  from  the  life  of  men  and  women.  We  sometimes 
feel  that,  almost  alone  in  the  harassed  and  weary  modern 
world,  we  love  that  life,  and  yet  we  are  the  least  afraid  to 
leave  it. 

It  is  usually  dark  when  the  shabby  little  narrow-gauge 
train  brings  us  home  to  Hillsboro  from  wanderings  in  the 
great  world,  and  the  big  pond  by  the  station  is  full  of 
stars.  Up  on  the  hill  the  lights  of  the  village  twinkle 
against  the  blurred  mass  of  Hemlock  Mountain,  and 
above  them  the  stars  again.  It  is  very  quiet,  the  station 
is  black  and  deserted,  the  road  winding  up  to  the  village 
glimmers  uncertainly  in  the  starlight,  and  dark  forms 
hover  vaguely  about.  Strangers  say  that  it  is  a  very 
depressing  station  at  which  to  arrive,  but  we  know  bet 
ter.  There  is  no  feeling  in  the  world  like  that  with  which 
one  starts  up  the  white  road,  stars  below  him  in  the  quiet 
pool,  stars  above  him  in  the  quiet  sky,  friendly  lights 
showing  the  end  of  his  journey  is  at  hand,  and  the  soft 
twilight  full  of  voices  all  familiar,  all  welcoming. 

Poor  old  Uncle  Abner  Rhodes,  returning  from  an  at 
tempt  to  do  business  in  the  city,  where  he  had  lost  his 
money,  his  health,  and  his  hopes,  said  he  didn't  see  how 
going  up  to  Heaven  could  be  so  very  different  from  walk 
ing  up  the  hill  from  the  station  with  Hemlock  Mountain 
in  front  of  you.  He  said  it  didn't  seem  to  him  as  though 
even  in  heaven  you  could  feel  more  than  then  that  you 
had  got  back  where  there  are  some  folks,  that  you  had 
got  back  home. 


i8  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

Sometimes  when  the  stars  hang  very  bright  over  Hem 
lock  Mountain  and  the  Necronsett  River  sings  loud  in 
the  dusk,  we  remember  the  old  man's  speech,  and,  though 
we  smile  at  his  simplicity,  we  think,  too,  that  the  best 
which  awaits  us  can  only  be  very  much  better  but  not 
BO  very  different  from  what  we  have  known  here. 


PETUNIAS— THAT'S    FOR 
REMEMBRANCE 

IT  was  a  place  to  which,  as  a  dreamy,  fanciful  child 
escaping  from  nursemaid  and  governess,  Virginia  had 
liked  to  climb  on  hot  summer  afternoons.  She  had  spent 
many  hours,  lying  on  the  grass  in  the  shade  of  the  dis 
mantled  house,  looking  through  the  gaunt,  uncovered 
rafters  of  the  barn  at  the  white  clouds,  like  stepping- 
stones  in  the  broad  blue  river  of  sky  flowing  between  the 
mountain  walls. 

Older  people  of  the  summer  colony  called  it  forlorn 
and  desolate — the  deserted  farm,  lying  high  on  the  slope 
of  Hemlock  Mountain — but  to  the  child  there  was  a 
charm  about  the  unbroken  silence  which  brooded  over 
the  little  clearing.  The  sun  shone  down  warmly  on  the 
house's  battered  shell  and  through  the  stark  skeleton  of 
the  barn.  The  white  birches,  strange  sylvan  denizens 
of  door  and  barnyard,  stood  shaking  their  delicate  leaves 
as  if  announcing  sweetly  that  the  kind  forest  would 
cover  all  the  wounds  of  human  neglect,  and  soon  every 
thing  would  be  as  though  man  had  not  lived.  And  every 
where  grew  the  thick,  strong,  glistening  grass,  covering 
even  the  threshold  with  a  cushion  on  which  the  child's 
foot  fell  as  noiselessly  as  a  shadow.  It  used  to  seem  to 
her  that  nothing  could  ever  have  happened  in  this  breath 
less  spot. 

Now  she  was  a  grown  woman,  she  told  herself,  twenty- 

19 


20  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

three  years  old  and  had  had,  she  often  thought,  as  full 
a  life  as  any  one  of  her  age  could  have.  Her  college 
course  had  been  varied  with  vacations  in  Europe;  she 
had  had  one  season  in  society ;  she  was  just  back  from  a 
trip  around  the  world.  Her  busy,  absorbing  life  had 
given  her  no  time  to  revisit  the  narrow  green  valley 
where  she  had  spent  so  many  of  her  childhood's  holidays. 
But  now  a  whim  for  self -analysis,  a  desire  to  learn  if  the 
old  glamour  about  the  lovely  enchanted  region  still  existed 
for  her  weary,  sophisticated  maturity,  had  made  her 
break  exacting  social  engagements  and  sent  her  back 
alone,  from  the  city,  to  see  how  the  old  valley  looked  in 
the  spring. 

Her  disappointment  was  acute.  The  first  impression 
and  the  one  which  remained  with  her,  coloring  painfully 
all  the  vistas  of  dim  woodland  aisles  and  sunlit  brooks, 
was  of  the  meagerness  and  meanness  of  the  desolate 
lives  lived  in  this  paradise.  This  was  a  fact  she  had  not 
noticed  as  a  child,  accepting  the  country  people  as  she 
did  all  other  incomprehensible  elders.  They  had  not 
seemed  to  her  to  differ  noticeably  from  her  delicate, 
esthetic  mother,  lying  in  lavender  silk  negligees  on  wicker 
couches,  reading  the  latest  book  of  Mallarme,  or  from 
her  competent,  rustling  aunt,  guiding  the  course  of  the 
summer  colony's  social  life  with  firm  hands.  There  was 
as  yet  no  summer  colony,  this  week  in  May.  Even  the 
big  hotel  was  not  open.  Virginia  was  lodged  in  the  house 
of  one  of  the  farmers.  There  was  no  element  to  dis 
tract  her  mind  from  the  narrow,  unlovely  lives  of  the 
owners  of  that  valley  of  beauty. 

They  were  grinding  away  at  their  stupefying  monot 
onous  tasks  as  though  the  miracle  of  spring  were  not 


PETUNIAS— THAT'S  FOR  REMEMBRANCE        21 

taking  place  before  their  eyes.  They  were  absorbed  in 
their  barnyards  and  kitchen  sinks  and  bad  cooking  and 
worse  dressmaking.  The  very  children,  grimy  little 
utilitarians  like  their  parents,  only  went  abroad  in  the 
flood  of  golden  sunshine,  in  order  to  rifle  the  hill  pastures 
of  their  wild  strawberries.  Virginia  was  no  longer  a 
child  to  ignore  all  this.  It  was  an  embittering,  imprison 
ing  thought  from  which  she  could  not  escape  even  in  the 
most  radiant  vision  of  May  woods.  She  was  a  woman 
now,  with  a  trained  mind  which  took  in  the  saddening 
significance  of  these  lives,  not  so  much  melancholy  or 
tragic  as  utterly  neutral,  featureless,  dun-colored.  They 
weighed  on  her  heart  as  she  walked  and  drove  about  the 
lovely  country  they  spoiled  for  her. 

What  a  heavenly  country  it  was !  She  compared  it  to 
similar  valleys  in  Switzerland,  in  Norway,  in  Japan,  and 
her  own  shone  out  pre-eminent  with  a  thousand  beauties 
of  bold  skyline,  of  harmoniously  "  composed  "  distances, 
of  exquisitely  fairy-like  detail  of  foreground.  But  oh !  the 
wooden  packing-boxes  of  houses  and  the  dreary  lives 
they  sheltered! 

The  Pritchard  family,  her  temporary  hosts,  summed 
up  for  her  the  human  life  of  the  valley.  There  were  two 
children,  inarticulate,  vacant-faced  country  children  of 
eight  and  ten,  out  from  morning  till  night  in  the  sunny, 
upland  pastures,  but  who  could  think  of  nothing  but  how 
many  quarts  of  berries  they  had  picked  and  what  price 
could  be  exacted  for  them.  There  was  Gran'ther  Pritch 
ard,  a  doddering,  toothless  man  of  seventy-odd,  and  his 
wife,  a  tall,  lean,  lame  old  woman  with  a  crutch  who 
sat  all  through  the  mealtimes  speechlessly  staring  at  the 
stranger,  with  faded  gray  eyes.  There  was  Mr.  Pritchard 


22  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

and  his  son  Joel,  gaunt  Yankees,  toiling  with  fierce  con 
centration  to  "  get  the  crops  in  "  after  a  late  spring.  Fi 
nally  there  was  Mrs.  Pritchard,  worn  and  pale,  passing 
those  rose-colored  spring  days  grubbing  in  her  vegetable 
garden.  And  all  of  them  silent,  silent  as  the  cattle 
they  resembled.  There  had  been  during  the  first  few 
days  of  her  week's  stay  some  vague  attempts  at 
conversation,  but  Virginia  was  soon  aware  that  they 
had  not  the  slightest  rudiments  of  a  common 
speech. 

A  blight  was  on  even  those  faint  manifestations  of 
the  esthetic  spirit  which  they  had  not  killed  out  of  their 
bare  natures.  The  pictures  in  the  house  were  bad  beyond 
belief,  and  the  only  flowers  were  some  petunias,  growing 
in  a  pot,  carefully  tended  by  Grandma  Pritchard.  They 
bore  a  mass  of  blossoms  of  a  terrible  magenta,  like  a 
blow  in  the  face  to  anyone  sensitive  to  color.  It  usually 
stood  on  the  dining-table,  which  was  covered  with  a  red 
cloth.  "  Crimson !  Magenta !  It  is  no  wonder  they  are 
lost  souls !  "  cried  the  girl  to  herself. 

On  the  last  day  of  her  week,  even  as  she  was  trying  to 
force  down  some  food  at  the  table  thus  decorated,  she 
bethought  herself  of  her  old  haunt  of  desolate  peace  on 
the  mountainside.  She  pushed  away  from  the  table 
with  an  eager,  murmured  excuse,  and  fairly  ran  out  into 
the  gold  and  green  of  the  forest,  a  paradise  lying  hard  by 
the  pitiable  little  purgatory  of  the  farmhouse.  As  she 
fled  along  through  the  clean-growing  maple-groves, 
through  stretches  of  sunlit  pastures,  azure  with  bluets, 
through  dark  pines,  red-carpeted  by  last  year's  needles, 
through  the  flickering,  shadowy-patterned  birches,  she 
cried  out  to  all  this  beauty  to  set  her  right  with  the  world 


PETUNIAS— THAT'S  FOR  REMEMBRANCE       23 

of  her  fellows,  to  ease  her  heart  of  its  burden  of  dis 
dainful  pity. 

But  there  was  no  answer. 

She  reached  the  deserted  clearing  breathless,  and 
paused  to  savor  its  slow,  penetrating  peace.  The  white 
birches  now  almost  shut  the  house  from  view;  the  barn 
had  wholly  disappeared.  From  the  finely  proportioned 
old  doorway  of  the  house  protruded  a  long,  grayed, 
weather-beaten  tuft  of  hay.  The  last  utilitarian  dishonor 
had  befallen  it.  It  had  not  even  its  old  dignity  of  vacant 
desolation.  She  went  closer  and  peered  inside.  Yes, 
hay,  the  scant  cutting  from  the  adjacent  old  meadows, 
had  been  piled  high  in  the  room  which  had  been 
the  gathering-place  of  the  forgotten  family  life.  She 
stepped  in  and  sank  down  on  it,  struck  by  the  far- 
reaching  view  from  the  window.  As  she  lay  looking 
out,  the  silence  was  as  insistent  as  a  heavy  odor  in  the 
air. 

The  big  white  clouds  lay  like  stepping-stones  in  the 
sky's  blue  river,  just  as  when  she  was  a  child.  Their 
silver-gleaming  brightness  blinded  her.  .  .  .  "  Uber  alien 
Gipfcln  ist  Ruh  .  .  .  warte  nur  .  .  .  balde  .  .  .  ruhest 
.  .  .  du  .  .  . "  she  began  to  murmur,  and  stopped,  awed 
by  the  immensity  of  the  hush  about  her.  She  closed 
her  eyes,  pillowed  her  head  on  her  upthrown  arms,  and 
sank  into  a  wide,  bright  reverie,  which  grew  dimmer  and 
vaguer  as  the  slow  changeless  hours  filed  by. 

She  did  not  know  if  it  were  from  a  doze,  or  but  from 
this  dreamy  haze  that  she  was  wakened  by  the  sound  of 
voices  outside  the  house,  under  the  window  by  which  she 
lay.  There  were  the  tones  of  a  stranger  and  those  of 
old  Mrs.  Pritchard,  but  now  flowing  on  briskly  with  a 


24  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

volubility  unrecognizable.  Virginia  sat  up,  hesitating. 
Were  they  only  passing  by,  or  stopping?  Should  she 
show  herself  or  let  them  go  on?  In  an  instant  the  ques 
tion  was  settled  for  her.  It  was  too  late.  She  would  only 
shame  them  if  they  knew  her  there.  She  had  caught  her 
own  name.  They  were  talking  of  her. 

"  Well,  you  needn't,"  said  the  voice  of  Mrs.  Pritchard. 
"  You  can  just  save  your  breath  to  cool  your  porridge. 
You  can't  get  nothin'  out'n  her." 

"  But  she's  traveled  'round  so  much,  seems's 
though  ..."  began  the  other  woman's  voice. 

"  Don't  it  ?  "  struck  in  old  Mrs.  Pritchard  assentingly. 
"But  'tain't  so!" 

The  other  was  at  a  loss.  "  Do  you  mean  she's  stuck-up 
and  won't  answer  you  ?  "  Mrs.  Pritchard  burst  into  a 
laugh,  the  great,  resonant  good-nature  of  which  amazed 
Virginia.  She  had  not  dreamed  that  one  of  these  sour, 
silent  people  could  laugh  like  that.  "  No,  land  no,  Abby ! 
She's  as  soft-spoken  as  anybody  could  be,  poor  thing! 
She  ain't  got  nothin'  to  say.  That's  all.  Why,  I  can 
git  more  out'n  any  pack-peddler  that's  only  been  from 
here  to  Rutland  and  back  than  out'n  her  .  .  .  and  she's 
traveled  all  summer  long  for  five  years,  she  was  tellin' 
us,  and  last  year  went  around  the  world." 

"Good  land!  Think  of  it!"  cried  the  other,  awe 
struck.  "China!  An'  Afriky!  An'  London!" 

"  That's  the  way  we  felt !  That's  the  reason  we  let 
her  come.  There  ain't  no  profit  in  one  boarder,  and  we 
never  take  boarders,  anyhow.  But  I  thought  'twould  be 
a  chance  for  the  young  ones  to  learn  something  about  how 
foreign  folks  lived."  She  broke  again  into  her  epic  laugh. 
"  Why,  Abby,  'twould  ha'  made  you  die  to  see  us  the  first 


PETUNIAS— THAT'S  FOR  REMEMBRANCE        25 

few  days  she  was  there,  tryin'  to  get  somethin'  out'n  her. 
Italy,  now  .  .  .  had  she  been  there?  'Oh,  yes,  she 
adored  Italy ! '  "  Virginia  flushed  at  the  echo  of  her  own 
exaggerated  accent  "  Well,  we'd  like  to  know  somethin' 
'bout  Italy.  What  did  they  raise  there?  Honest,  Abby, 
you'd  ha'  thought  we'd  hit  her  side  th'  head.  She  thought 
and  she  thought,  and  all  she  could  say  was  'olives/ 
Nothing  else  ?  '  Well,  she'd  never  noticed  anything  else 
; .  .  .  oh,  yes,  lemons.'  Well,  that  seemed  kind  o'  queer 
vittles,  but  you  can't  never  tell  how  foreigners  git  along, 
so  we  thought  maybe  they  just  lived  off'n  olives  and 
lemons ;  and  Joel  he  asked  her  how  they  raised  'em,  and 
if  they  manured  heavy  or  trusted  to  phosphate,  and  how 
long  the  trees  took  before  they  began  to  bear,  and  if 
they  pruned  much,  and  if  they  had  the  same  trouble  we 
do,  come  harvest  time,  to  hire  hands  enough  to  git  in  th' 
crop." 

She  paused.  The  other  woman  asked,  "  Well,  what 
did  she  say?  " 

The  echoes  rang  again  to  the  old  woman's  great  laugh. 
"  We  might  as  well  ha'  asked  her  'bout  the  back  side 
of  th'  moon !  So  we  gave  up  on  olives  and  lemons !  Then 
Eben  he  asked  her  'bout  taxes  there.  Were  they  on  land 
mostly  and  were  they  high  and  who  'sessed  'em  and  how 
'bout  school  tax.  Did  the  state  pay  part  o'  that  ?  You 
see  town  meetin'  being  so  all  tore  up  every  year  'bout 
taxes,  Eben  he  thought  'twould  be  a  chance  to  hear  how 
other  folks  did,  and  maybe  learn  somethin'.  Good  land, 
Abby,  I've  set  there  and  'most  died,  trying  to  keep  from 
yellin'  right  out  with  laugh  to  see  our  folks  tryin'  to  learn 
somethin'  'bout  foreign  parts  from  that  woman  that's 
traveled  in  'em  steady  for  five  years.  I  bet  she  was  blind- 


26  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

folded  and  gagged  and  had  cotton  in  her  ears  the  hull  time 
she  was  there !  " 

"  Didn't  she  tell  you  anythin'  'bout  taxes  ?  " 
"  Taxes  ?  You'd  ha'  thought  'twas  bumble-bees'  hind 
legs  we  was  askin'  'bout!  She  ackshilly  seemed  s'prised 
to  be  asked.  Land!  What  had  she  ever  thought  'bout 
such  triflin'  things  as  taxes.  She  didn't  know  how  they 
was  taxed  in  Italy,  or  if  they  was  .  .  .  nor  anywhere 
else.  That  what  it  come  down  to,  every  time.  She 
didn't  know!  She  didn't  know  what  kind  of  schools 
they  had,  nor  what  the  roads  was  made  of,  nor  who 
made  'em.  She  couldn't  tell  you  what  hired  men  got, 
nor  any  wages,  nor  what  girls  that  didn't  get  married 
did  for  a  living,  nor  what  rent  they  paid,  nor  how  they 
'mused  themselves,  nor  how  much  land  was  worth,  nor  if 
they  had  factories,  nor  if  there  was  any  lumberin'  done, 
nor  how  they  managed  to  keep  milk  in  such  awful  hot 
weather  without  ice.  Honest,  Abby,  she  couldn't  even  say 
if  the  houses  had  cellars  or  not.  Why,  it  come  out  she 
never  was  in  a  real  house  that  anybody  lived  in  ...  only 
hotels.  She  hadn't  got  to  know  a  single  real  person  that 
b'longed  there.  Of  course  she  never  found  out  anything 
'bout  how  they  lived.  Her  mother  was  there,  she  said, 
and  her  aunt,  and  that  Bilson  family  that  comes  to  th' 
village  summers,  an'  the  Goodriches  an'  the  Phippses  an' 
the  .  .  .  oh,  sakes  alive,  you  know  that  same  old  crowd 
that  rides  'roun'  here  summers  and  thinks  to  be  sociable 
by  sayin'  how  nice  an'  yellow  your  oats  is  blossomin'! 
You  could  go  ten  times  'roun'  the  world  with  them  and 
know  less  'bout  what  folks  is  like  than  when  you  started. 
When  I  heard  'bout  them  being  there,  I  called  Eben  and 
Joel  and  Em'ly  off  and  I  says,  '  Now,  don't  pester  that 


PETUNIAS— THAT'S  FOR  REMEMBRANCE        27 

poor  do-less  critter  with  questions  any  more.  How  much 
do  the  summer  folks  down  to  th'  village  know  'bout  the 
way  we  live?  '  Well,  they  burst  out  laughin',  of  course. 
1  Well,  then/  I  says,  '  'tis  plain  to  be  seen  that  all  they  do 
in  winter  is  to  go  off  to  some  foreign  part  and  do  the 
same  as  here,'  so  I  says  to  them,  same's  I  said  to  you, 
Abby,  a  while  back,  that  they'd  better  save  their  breath  to 
cool  their  porridge.  But  it's  awful  solemn  eatin'  now, 
without  a  word  spoke." 

The  other  woman  laughed.  "  Why,  you  don't  have  to 
talk  'bout  foreign  parts  or  else  keep  still,  do  ye?  " 

"  Oh,  it's  just  so  'bout  everythin'.  We  heard  she'd  been 
in  Washington  last  winter,  so  Eben  he  brisked  up  and 
tried  her  on  politics.  Well,  she'd  never  heard  of  direct 
primaries,  they're  raisin'  such  a  holler  'bout  in  York 
State ;  she  didn't  know  what  th'  'nsurgent  senators  are  up 
to  near  as  much  as  we  did,  and  to  judge  by  the  way  she 
looked,  she'd  only  just  barely  heard  of  th'  tariff."  The 
word  was  pronounced  with  true  New  England  reverence. 
"  Then  we  tried  bringin'  up  children,  and  lumberin'  an' 
roads,  an'  cookin',  an'  crops,  an'  stock,  an'  wages,  an' 
schools,  an'  gardenin',  but  we  couldn't  touch  bottom  no 
where.  Never  a  word  to  be  had  out'n  her.  So  we  give 
up  and  now  we  just  sit  like  stotin'  bottles,  an'  eat — an'  do 
our  visitin'  with  each  other  odd  minutes  afterward." 

"Why,  she  don't  look  to  be  half-witted,"  said  the 
other. 

"  She  ain't ! "  cried  Mrs.  Pritchard  with  emphasis. 
"  She's  got  as  good  a  headpiece,  natchilly,  as  anybody.  I 
remember  her  when  she  was  a  young  one.  It's  the  fool 
way  they're  brung  up !  Everythin'  that's  any  fun  or  in 
trust,  they  hire  somebody  else  to  do  it  for  'em.  Here  she 


28  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

is  a  great  strappin'  woman  of  twenty-two  or  three,  with 
nothing  in  the  world  to  do  but  to  traipse  off  'cross  the 
fields  from  mornin'  to  night — an'  nobody  to  need  her 
there  nor  here,  nor  anywhere.  No  wonder  she  looks 
peaked.  Sometimes  when  I  see  her  set  and  stare  off,  so 
sort  o'  dull  and  hopeless,  I'm  so  sorry  for  her  I  could 
cry !  Good  land !  I'd  as  lief  hire  somebody  to  chew  my 
vittles  for  me  and  give  me  the  dry  cud  to  live  off  of, 
as  do  the  way  those  kind  of  folks  do." 

The  distant  call  of  a  steam-whistle,  silvered  by  the 
great  distance  into  a  flute-like  note,  interrupted  her. 
"  That's  the  milk-train,  whistling  for  the  Millbrook  cross- 
in',"  she  said.  "  We  must  be  thinkin'  of  goin'  home 
before  long.  Where  be  those  young  ones  ?  "  She  raised 
her  voice  in  a  call  as  unexpectedly  strong  and  vibrant  as 
her  laugh.  "Susie!  Eddie!  Did  they  answer?  I'm 
gittin'  that  hard  o'  hearin'  'tis  hard  for  me  to  make  out." 
3  "  Yes,  they  hollered  back,"  said  the  other.  "  An'  I  see 
'em  comin'  through  the  pasture  yonder.  I  guess  they  got 
their  pails  full  by  the  way  they  carry  'em." 

"  That's  good,"  said  Mrs.  Pritchard  with  satisfaction. 
"  They  can  get  twenty-five  cents  a  quart  hulled,  off'n  sum 
mer  folks.  They're  savin'  up  to  help  Joel  go  to  Middle- 
town  College  in  the  fall." 

"  They  think  a  lot  o'  Joel,  don't  they?  "  commented  the 

other. 

"  Oh,  the  Pritchards  has  always  been  a  family  that 
knew  how  to  set  store  by  their  own  folks,"  said  the  old 
woman  proudly,  "  and  Joel  he'll  pay  'em  back  as  soon  as 
he  gets  ahead  a  little." 

The  children  had  evidently  now  come  up,  for  Virginia 
heard  congratulations  over  the  berries  and  exclamations 


PETUNIAS— THAT'S  FOR  REMEMBRANCE       29 

over  their  sun-flushed  cheeks.  "  Why,  Susie,  you  look 
like  a  pickled  beet  in  your  face.  Set  down,  child,  an'  cool 
off.  Grandma  called  you  an'  Eddie  down  to  tell  you  an 
old-timey  story." 

There  was  an  outbreak  of  delighted  cries  from  the 
children  and  Mrs.  Pritchard  said  deprecatinglyf  "  You 
know,  Abby,  there  never  was  children  yetxihat  wasn't 
crazy  'bout  old-timey  stories.  I  remember  how  I  used 
to  hang  onto  Aunt  Debby's  skirts  and  beg  her  to  tell  me 
some  more. 

"  The  story  I'm  goin'  to  tell  you  is  about  this  Great- 
aunt  Debby,"  she  announced  formally  to  her  auditors, 
"  when  she  was  'bout  fourteen  years  old  and  lived  up  here 
in  this  very  house,  pretty  soon  after  th'  Rev'lution.  There 
was  only  just  a  field  or  two  cleared  off  'round  it  then,  and 
all  over  th'  mounting  the  woods  were  as  black  as  any 
cellar  with  pines  and  spruce.  Great-aunt  Debby  was 
the  oldest  one  of  five  children  and  my  grandfather — 
your  great-great-grandfather — was  the  youngest.  In 
them  days  there  wa'n't  but  a  few  families  in  the  valley 
and  they  lived  far  apart,  so  when  Great-aunt  Debby's 
father  got  awful  sick  a  few  days  after  he'd  been  away 
to  get  some  grist  ground,  Aunt  Debby's  mother  had  to 
send  her  'bout  six  miles  through  th'  woods  to  the  nearest 
house — it  stood  where  the  old  Perkins  barn  is  now.  The 
man  come  back  with  Debby,  but  as  soon  as  he  saw  great 
grandfather  he  give  one  yell—'  smallpox !  '—and  lit  out 
for  home.  Folks  was  tur'ble  afraid  of  it  then  an'  he  had 
seven  children  of  his  own  an'  nobody  for  'em  to  look  to  if 
he  died,  so  you  couldn't  blame  him  none.  They  was  all 
like  that  then,  every  fam'ly  just  barely  holdin'  on,  an' 
scratchin'  for  dear  life. 


30  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

"  Well,  he  spread  the  news,  and  the  next  day,  while 
Debby  was  helpin'  her  mother  nurse  her  father  the  best  she 
could,  somebody  called  her  over  toward  th'  woods.  They 
made  her  stand  still  'bout  three  rods  from  'em  and  shouted 
to  her  that  the  best  they  could  do  was  to  see  that  the 
fam'ly  had  vittles  enough.  The  neighbors  would  cook  up 
a  lot  and  leave  it  every  day  in  the  fence  corner  and  Debby 
could  come  and  git  it. 

"  That  was  the  way  they  fixed  it.  Aunt  Debby  said 
they  was  awful  faithful  and  good  'bout  it  and  never 
failed,  rain  or  shine,  to  leave  a  lot  of  the  best  stuff  they 
could  git  in  them  days.  But  before  long  she  left  some 
of  it  there,  to  show  they  didn't  need  so  much,  be 
cause  they  wasn't  so  many  to  eat. 

"  First,  Aunt  Debby's  father  died.  Her  mother  and 
she  dug  the  grave  in  th'  corner  of  th'  clearin',  down  there 
where  I'm  pointin'.  Aunt  Debby  said  she  couldn't  never 
forget  how  her  mother  looked  as  she  said  a  prayer  before 
they  shoveled  the  dirt  back  in.  Then  the  two  of  'em  took 
care  of  the  cow  and  tried  to  get  in  a  few  garden  seeds 
while  they  nursed  one  of  the  children — the  boy  that  was 
next  to  Debby.  That  turned  out  to  be  smallpox,  of 
course,  and  he  died  and  they  buried  him  alongside  his 
father.  Then  the  two  youngest  girls,  twins  they  was, 
took  sick,  and  before  they  died  Aunt  Debby's  mother  fell 
over  in  a  faint  while  she  was  tryin'  to  spade  up  the  gar 
den.  Aunt  Debby  got  her  into  the  house  and  put  her  to 
bed.  She  never  said  another  thing,  but  just  died  without 
so  much  as  knowin'  Debby.  She  and  the  twins  went  the 
same  day,  and  Debby  buried  'em  in  one  grave. 

"  It  took  her  all  day  to  dig  it,  she  said.  They '  was 
afraid  of  wolves  in  them  days  and  had  to  have  their 


PETUNIAS— THAT'S  FOR  REMEMBRANCE        31 

graves  deep.  The  baby,  the  one  that  was  to  be  my  grand 
father,  played  'round  while  she  was  diggin',  and  she  had 
to  stop  to  milk  the  cow  and  git  his  meals  for  him.  She 
got  the  bodies  over  to  the  grave,  one  at  a  time,  draggin' 
'em  on  the  wood-sled.  When  she  was  ready  to  shovel  the 
dirt  back  in,  'twas  gettin'  to  be  twilight,  and  she  said  the 
thrushes  were  beginnin'  to  sing — she  made  the  baby  kneel 
down  and  she  got  on  her  knees  beside  him  and  took  hold 
of  his  hand  to  say  a  prayer.  She  was  just  about  wore 
out,  as  you  can  think,  and  scared  to  death,  and  she'd  never 
known  any  prayer,  anyhow.  All  she  could  think  to  say 
was  '  Lord — Lord — Lord ! '  And  she  made  the  baby  say 
it,  over  and  over.  I  guess  'twas  a  good  enough  prayer 
too.  When  I  married  and  come  up  here  to  live,  seems 
as  though  I  never  heard  the  thrushes  begin  to  sing  in  the 
evening  without  I  looked  down  there  and  could  almost  see 
them  two  on  their  knees. 

"  Well,  there  she  was,  fourteen  years  old,  with  a  two- 
year-old  baby  to  look  out  for,  and  all  the  rest  of  the 
family  gone  as  though  she'd  dreamed  'em.  She  was  sure 
she  and  little  Eddie — you're  named  for  him,  Eddie,  and 
don't  you  never  forget  it — would  die,  of  course,  like  the 
others,  but  she  wa'n't  any  hand  to  give  up  till  she  had  to, 
and  she  wanted  to  die  last,  so  to  look  out  for  the  baby. 
So  when  she  took  sick  she  fought  the  smallpox  just  like 
a  wolf,  she  used  to  tell  us.  She  had  to  live,  to  take  care 
of  Eddie.  She  gritted  her  teeth  and  wouldn't  die,  though, 
as  she  always  said,  'twould  ha'  been  enough  sight  more 
comfortable  than  to  live  through  what  she  did. 

"  Some  folks  nowadays  say  it  couldn't  ha'  been  small 
pox  she  had,  or  she  couldn't  ha'  managed.  I  don't  know 
'bout  that.  I  guess  'twas  plenty  bad  enough,  anyhow. 


32  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

She  was  out  of  her  head  a  good  share  of  th'  time,  but 
she  never  forgot  to  milk  the  cow  and  give  Eddie  his 
meals.  She  used  to  fight  up  on  her  knees  (there  was  a 
week  when  she  couldn't  stand  without  fallin'  over  in  a 
faint)  and  then  crawl  out  to  the  cow-shed  and  sit  down 
flat  on  the  ground  and  reach  up  to  milk.  One  day  the 
fever  was  so  bad  she  was  clear  crazy  and  she  thought 
angels  in  silver  shoes  come  right  out  there,  in  the  manure 
an'  all,  and  milked  for  her  and  held  the  cup  to  Eddie's 
mouth. 

"An'  one  night  she  thought  somebody,  with  a  big 
black  cape  on,  come  and  stood  over  her  with  a  knife. 
She  riz  up  in  bed  and  told  him  to  '  git  out!  She'd  have 
to  stay  to  take  care  of  the  baby ! '  And  she  hit  at  the 
knife  so  fierce  she  knocked  it  right  out'n  his  hand.  Then 
she  fainted  away  agin.  She  didn't  come  to  till  mornin', 
and  when  she  woke  up  she  knew  she  was  goin'  to  live. 
She  always  said  her  hand  was  all  bloody  that  morning 
from  a  big  cut  in  it,  and  she  used  to  show  us  the  scar — a 
big  one  'twas,  too.  But  I  guess  most  likely  that  come 
from  something  else.  Folks  was  awful  superstitious  in 
them  days,  and  Aunt  Debby  was  always  kind  o'  queer. 

'l  Well,  an'  so  she  did  live  and  got  well,  though  she 
never  grew  a  mite  from  that  time.  A  little  wizened-up 
thing  she  was,  always;  but  I  tell  you  folks  'round  here 
thought  a  nawful  lot  of  Aunt  Debby!  And  Eddie,  if 
you'll  believe  it,  never  took  the  sickness  at  all.  They  say, 
sometimes,  babies  don't. 

"  They  got  a  fam'ly  to  come  and  work  the  farm  for 
'em,  and  Debby  she  took  care  of  her  little  brother,  same  as 
she  always  had.  And  he  grew  up  and  got  married  and 
come  to  live  in  this  house  and  Aunt  Debby  lived  with  him. 


PETUNIAS— THAT'S  FOR  REMEMBRANCE        33 

They  did  set  great  store  by  each  other!  Grandmother 
used  to  laugh  and  say  grandfather  and  Aunt  Debby  didn't 
need  no  words  to  talk  together.  I  was  eight,  goin'  on  nine 
— why,  Susie,  just  your  age — when  Aunt  Debby  died.  I 
remember  as  well  the  last  thing  she  said.  Somebody 
asked  her  if  she  was  afraid.  She  looked  down  over  the 
covers — I  can  see  her  now,  like  a  old  baby  she  looked,  so 
little  and  so  light  on  the  big  feather-bed,  and  she  said, 
'  Is  a  grain  o'  wheat  scared  when  you  drop  it  in  the 
ground  ?  '  I  always  thought  that  wa'n't  such  a  bad  thing 
for  a  child  to  hear  said. 

"  She'd  wanted  to  be  buried  there  beside  the  others  and 
grandfather  did  it  so.  While  he  was  alive  he  took  care  of 
the  graves  and  kept  'em  in  good  order;  and  after  I  mar 
ried  and  come  here  to  live  I  did.  But  I'm  gettin'  on  now, 
and  I  want  you  young  folks  should  know  'bout  it  and  do 
it  after  I'm  gone. 

"  Now,  here,  Susie,  take  this  pot  of  petunias  and  set  it 
out  on  the  head  of  the  grave  that's  got  a  stone  over  it. 
And  if  you're  ever  inclined  to  think  you  have  a  hard  time, 
just  you  remember  Aunt  Debby  and  shut  your  teeth  and 
hang  on!  If  you  tip  the  pot  bottom-side  up,  and  knock 
on  it  with  a  stone,  it'll  all  slip  out  easy.  Now  go 
along  with  you.  We've  got  to  be  starting  for  home 
soon." 

There  was  a  brief  pause  and  then  the  cheerful  voice 
went  on :  "  If  there's  any  flower  I  do  despise,  it's  petunias ! 
But  'twas  Aunt  Debby's  'special  favorite,  so  I  always 
start  a  pot  real  early  and  have  it  in  blossom  when  her 
birthday  comes  'round." 

By  the  sound  she  was  struggling  heavily  to  her  feet. 
"  Yes,  do,  for  goodness'  sakes,  haul  me  up,  will  ye? 


34  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

I'm  as  stiff  as  an  old  horse.  I  don't  know  what  makes 
me  so  rheumaticky.  My  folks  ain't,  as  a  general 
thing." 

There  was  so  long  a  silence  that  the  girl  inside  the 
house  wondered  if  they  were  gone,  when  Mrs.  Pritchard's 
voice  began  again :  "  I  do  like  to  come  up  here !  It  'minds 
me  of  him  an'  me  livin'  here  when  we  was  young.  We 
had  a  good  time  of  it !  " 

"  I  never  could  see,"  commented  the  other,  "  how 
you  managed  when  he  went  away  t'  th'  war." 

"  Oh,  I  did  the  way  you  do  when  you  have  to !  I'd 
felt  he  ought  to  go,  you  know,  as  much  as  he  did,  so  I  was 
willin'  to  put  in  my  best  licks.  An'  I  was  young  too — 
twenty-three — and  only  two  of  the  children  born  then — 
and  I  was  as  strong  as  a  ox.  I  never  minded  the  work 
any.  'Twas  the  days  after  battles,  when  we  couldn't  get 
no  news,  that  was  the  bad  part.  Why,  I  could  go  to  the 
very  spot,  over  there  where  the  butternut  tree  stands— 
'twas  our  garden  then — where  I  heard  he  was  killed  at 
Gettysburg." 

"  What  did  you  do?  "  asked  the  other. 

"  I  went  on  hoein'  my  beans.  There  was  the  two  chil 
dren  to  be  looked  out  for,  you  know.  But  I  ain't  mindin' 
tellin'  you  that  I  can't  look  at  a  bean-row  since  without 
gettin'  sick  to  my  stomach  and  feelin'  the  goose-pimples 
start  all  over  me." 

"  How  did  you  hear  'twan't  so?  " 

"  Why,  I  was  gettin'  in  the  hay — up  there  where  the 
oaks  stand  was  our  hay-field.  I  remember  how  sick 
the  smell  of  the  hay  made  me,  and  when  the  sweat  run 
down  into  my  eyes  I  was  glad  to  feel  'em  smart  and 
sting — well,  Abby,  you  just  wait  till  you  hear  your 


PETUNIAS— THAT'S  FOR  REMEMBRANCE        35 

Nathan'l  is  shot  through  the  head  and  you'll  know  how 
I  was — well,  all  of  a  sudden — somebody  took  the  fork 
out'n  my  hand  an' — an'  said — '  here,  you  drive  an'  I'll 
pitch  ' — and  there — 'twas — 'twas— 

"Why,  Grandma  Pritchard!    You're " 

"No,  I  ain't,  either;  I  ain't  such  a  fool,  I  hope! 
Why,  see  me  cry  like  a  old  numskull !  Ain't  it  ridic'lous 
how  you  can  talk  'bout  deaths  and  buryin's  all  right,  and 
can't  tell  of  how  somebody  come  back  from  the  grave 
without — where  in  th'  nation  is  my  handkerchief !  Why, 
Abby,  things  ain't  never  looked  the  same  to  me  from  that 
minute  on.  I  tell  you — I  tell  you — /  was  real  glad  to  see 
him! 

"  Good  land,  what  time  o'  day  do  you  suppose  it  can 
be  ?  Susie !  Eddie !  Come,  git  your  berries  and  start 
home!" 

The  two  voices  began  to  sound  more  faintly  as  the  old 
woman's  crutch  rang  on  the  stones.  "  Well,  Abby,  when 
I  come  up  here  and  remember  how  I  farmed  it  alone  for 
four  years,  I  say  to  myself  thatC'twan't  only  th'  men  that 
set  the  slaves  freej  Them  that  stayed  to  home  was  al 
lowed  to  have  their  share  in  the  good "  The  syllables 

blurred  into  an  indistinguishable  hum  and  there  fell  again 
upon  the  house  its  old  mantle  of  silence. 

As  if  aroused  by  this  from  an  hypnotic  spell,  the  girl 
on  the  hay  sat  up  suddenly,  pressing  her  hands  over  her 
eyes;  but  she  did  not  shut  out  a  thousand  thronging 
visions.  There  was  not  a  sound  but  the  loud  throbbing  of 
the  pulses  at  her  temples;  but  never  again  could  there 
be  silence  for  her  in  that  spot.  The  air  was  thick  with 
murmurs  which  beat  against  her  ears.  She  was  trembling 
as  she  slipped  down  from  the  hay  and,  walking  unsteadily 


36  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

to  the  door,  stood  looking  half- wildly  out  into  the  haunted 
twilight. 

The  faint  sound  of  the  brook  rose  liquid  in  the  quiet 
evening  air. 

There,  where  the  butternut  tree  stood,  had  been  the 
garden ! 

The  white  birches  answered  with  a  rustling  stir  in  all 
their  lightly  poised  leaves. 

Up  there,  where  the  oaks  were,  had  been  the  hay- 
field! 

The  twilight  darkened.  Through  the  forest,  black  on 
the  crest  of  the  overhanging  mountain,  shone  suddenly 
the  evening  star. 

There,  before  the  door,  had  stood  the  waiting  wood- 
sled! 

The  girl  caught  through  the  gathering  dusk  a  gleam 
of  magenta  from  the  corner  of  the  clearing. 

Two  hermit  thrushes,  distant  in  the  forest,  began  to 
send  up  their  poignant  antiphonal  evening  chant. 


THE  HEYDAY  OF  THE  BLOOD 

THE  older  professor  looked  up  at  the  assistant,  fum 
bling  fretfully  with  a  pile  of  papers.  "  Farrar,  what's  the 
matter  with  you  lately?"  he  said  sharply. 

The  younger  man  started,  "  Why  .  .  .  why  ..."  the 
brusqueness  of  the  other's  manner  shocked  him  suddenly 
into  confession.  "  I've  lost  my  nerve,  Professor  Mai- 
lory,  that's  what  the  matter  with  me.  I'm  frightened  to 
death,"  he  said  melodramatically. 

"  What  off  "  asked  Mallory,  with  a  little  challenge  in 
his  tone. 

The  flood-gates  were  open.  The  younger  man  burst 
out  in  exclamations,  waving  his  thin,  nervous,  knotted 
fingers,  his  face  twitching  as  he  spoke.  "Of  myself  .  .  . 
no,  not  myself,  but  my  body!  I'm  not  well  ...  I'm  get 
ting  worse  all  the  time.  The  doctors  don't  make  out 
what  is  the  matter  ...  I  don't  sleep  ...  I  worry  .  .  . 
I  forget  things,  I  take  no  interest  in  life  ...  the  doctors 
intimate  a  nervous  breakdown  ahead  of  me  .  .  .  and  yet 
I  rest  ...  I  rest  .  .  .  more  than  I  can  afford  to!  I 
never  go  out.  Every  evening  I'm  in  bed  by  nine  o'clock. 
I  take  no  part  in  college  life  beyond  my  work,  for  fear  of 
the  nervous  strain.  I've  refused  to  take  charge  of  that 
summer-school  in  New  York,  you  know,  that  would  be 
such  an  opportunity  for  me  .  .  .  if  I  could  only  sleep! 
But  though  I  never  do  anything  exciting  in  the  evening 
.  .  .  heavens !  what  nights  I  have.  Black  hours  of  see- 

37 


38  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

ing  myself  in  a  sanitarium,  dependent  on  my  brother!  I 
never  .  .  .  why,  I'm  in  hell  .  .  .  that's  what  the 
matter  with  me,  a  perfect  hell  of  ignoble  terror.! " 

He  sat  silent,  his  drawn  face  turned  to  the  window. 
The  older  man  looked  at  him  speculatively.  When  he 
spoke  it  was  with  a  cheerful,  casual  quality  in  his  voice 
which  made  the  other  look  up  at  him  surprised. 

"  You  don't  suppose  those  great  friends  of  yours,  the 
nerve  specialists,  would  object  to  my  telling  you  a  story, 
do  you  ?  It's  very  quiet  and  unexciting.  You're  not  too 
busy?" 

"  Busy !  I've  forgotten  the  meaning  of  the  word !  I 
don't  dare  to  be!" 

"Very  well,  then;  I  mean  to  carry  you  back  to  the 
stony  little  farm  in  the  Green  Mountains,  where  I  had 
the  extreme  good  luck  to  be  born  and  raised.  You've 
heard  me  speak  of  Hillsboro;  and  the  story  is  all  about  my 
great-grandfather,  who  came  to  live  with  us  when  I  was 
a  little  boy." 

"Your  great-grandfather?"  said  the  other  incredu 
lously.  "  People  don't  remember  their  great-grand 
fathers!" 

"  Oh,  yes,  they  do,  in  Vermont.  There  was  my  father 
on  one  farm,  and  my  grandfather  on  another,  without  a 
thought  that  he  was  no  longer  young,  and  there  was 
'  gran'ther'  as  we  called  him,  eighty-eight  years  old  and 
just  persuaded  to  settle  back,  let  his  descendants  take  care 
of  him,  and  consent  to  be  an  old  man.  He  had  been 
in  the  War  of  1812 — think  of  that,  you  mushroom! — 
and  had  lost  an  arm  and  a  good  deal  of  his  health  there. 
He  had  lately  begun  to  get  a  pension  of  twelve  dollars  a 
month,  so  that  for  an  old  man  he  was  quite  independent 


THE  HEYDAY  OF  THE  BLOOD      39 

financially,  as  poor  Vermont  farmers  look  at  things ;  and 
he  was  a  most  extraordinary  character,  so  that  his  arrival 
in  our  family  was  quite  an  event. 

"  He  took  precedence  at  once  of  the  oldest  man  in  the 
township,  who  was  only  eighty-four  and  not  very  bright. 
I  can  remember  bragging  at  school  about  Gran'ther  Pen- 
dleton,  who'd  be  eighty-nine  come  next  Woodchuck  day, 
and  could  see  to  read  without  glasses.  He  had  been 
ailing  all  his  life,  ever  since  the  fever  he  took  in  the  war. 
He  used  to  remark  triumphantly  that  he  had  now  out 
lived  six  doctors  who  had  each  given  him  but  a  year  to 
live;  '  and  the  seventh  is  going  downhill  fast,  so  I  hear! ' 
This  last  was  his  never-failing  answer  to  the  attempts  of 
my  conscientious  mother  and  anxious,  dutiful  father  to 
check  the  old  man's  reckless  indifference  to  any  of  the 
rules  of  hygiene. 

"  They  were  good  disciplinarians  with  their  children, 
and  this  naughty  old  man,  who  would  give  his  weak  stom 
ach  frightful  attack?  of  indigestion  by  stealing  out  to  the 
pantry  and  devouring  a  whole  mince  pie  because  he  had 
been  refused  two  pieces  at  the  table — this  rebellious,  un 
reasonable,  whimsical  old  madcap  was  an  electric  element 
in  our  quiet,  orderly  life.  He  insisted  on  going  to  every 
picnic  and  church  sociable,  where  he  ate  recklessly  of  all 
the  indigestible  dainties  he  could  lay  his  hands  on,  stood 
in  drafts,  tired  himself  to  the  verge  of  fainting  away  by 
playing  games  with  the  children,  and  returned  home,  ex 
hausted,  animated,  and  quite  ready  to  pay  the  price  of  a 
day  in  bed,  groaning  and  screaming  out  with  pain  as 
heartily  and  unaffectedly  as  he  had  laughed  with  the 
pretty  girls  the  evening  before. 

"  The  climax  came,  however,  in  the  middle  of  August, 


40  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

when  he  announced  his  desire  to  go  to  the  county  fair, 
held  some  fourteen  miles  down  the  valley  from  our 
farm.  Father  never  dared  let  gran'ther  go  anywhere 
without  himself  accompanying  the  old  man,  but  he  was 
perfectly  sincere  in  saying  that  it  was  not  because  he 
could  not  spare  a  day  from  the  haying  that  he  refused 
pointblank  to  consider  it.  The  doctor  who  had  been 
taking  care  of  gran'ther  since  he  came  to  live  with  us  said 
that  it  would  be  crazy  to  think  of  such  a  thing.  He  added 
that  the  wonder  was  that  gran'ther  lived  at  all,  for  his 
heart  was  all  wrong,  his  asthma  was  enough  to  kill  a 
young  man,  and  he  had  no  digestion;  in  short,  if  father 
wished  to  kill  his  old  grandfather,  there  was  no  surer 
way  than  to  drive  fourteen  miles  in  the  heat  of  August  to 
the  noisy  excitement  of  a  county  fair. 

"  So  father  for  once  said  '  No,'  in  the  tone  that  we 
children  had  come  to  recognize  as  final.  Gran'ther  grimly 
tied  a  knot  in  his  empty  sleeve — a  curious,  enigmatic 
mode  of  his  to  express  strong  emotion — put  his  one  hand 
on  his  cane,  and  his  chin  on  his  hand,  and  withdrew  him 
self  into  that  incalculable  distance  from  the  life  about  him 
where  very  old  people  spend  so  many  hours. 

"  He  did  not  emerge  from  this  until  one  morning 
toward  the  middle  of  fair-week,  when  all  the  rest  of  the 
family  were  away — father  and  the  bigger  boys  on  the 
far-off  upland  meadows  haying,  and  mother  and  the  girls 
off  blackberry  ing.  I  was  too  little  to  be  of  any  help,  so  I 
had  been  left  to  wait  on  gran'ther,  and  to  set  out  our 
lunch  of  bread  and  milk  and  huckleberries.  We  had  not 
been  alone  half  an  hour  when  gran'ther  sent  me  to  ex 
tract,  from  under  the  mattress  of  his  bed,  the  wallet  in 
which  he  kept  his  pension  money.  There  was  six  dol- 


THE  HEYDAY  OF  THE  BLOOD      41 

lars  and  forty-three  cents  —  he  counted  it  over  carefully, 
sticking  out  his  tongue  like  a  schoolboy  doing  a  sum,  and 
when  he  had  finished  he  began  to  laugh  and  snap  his 
fingers  and  sing  out  in  his  high,  cracked  old  voice  : 

"  '  We're  goin'  to  go  a  skylarkin'  !  Little  Jo  Mallory 
is  going  to  the  county  fair  with  his  Granther  Pendleton, 
an'  he's  goin'  to  have  more  fun  than  ever  was  in  the 
world,  and  he  —  —  ' 

"  '  But,  gran'ther,  father  said  we  mustn't  !  '  I  pro 
tested,  horrified. 

"  '  But  I  say  we  shall!  I  was  your  gre't-gran'ther  long 
before  he  was  your  feyther,  and  anyway  I'm  here  and  he's 
not  —  so,  march!  Out  to  the  barn!  ' 

"  He  took  me  by  the  collar,  and,  executing  a  shuffling 
fandango  of  triumph,  he  pushed  me  ahead  of  him  to  the 
stable,  where  old  white  Peggy,  the  only  horse  left  at 
home,  looked  at  us  amazed. 

"  '  But  it'll  be  twenty-eight  miles,  and  Peg's  never 
driven  over  eight  !  '  I  cried,  my  old-established  world  of 
rules  and  orders  reeling  before  my  eyes. 

"  '  Eight—  and—  twenty-eight! 
But  I  —  am  —  eighty  - 


"  Gran'ther  improvised  a  sort  of  whooping  chant  of 
scorn  as  he  pulled  the  harness  from  the  peg.  '  It'll  do  her 
good  to  drink  some  pink  lemonade  —  old  Peggy!  An'  if 
she  gits  tired  comin'  home,  I'll  git  out  and  carry  her 
part  way  myself  !  ' 

"  His  adventurous  spirit  was  irresistible.  I  made  no 
further  objection,  and  we  hitched  up  together,  I  standing 
on  a  chair  to  fix  the  check-rein,  and  gran'ther  doing  won 
ders  with  his  one  hand.  Then,  just  as  we  were  —  gran'ther 


42  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

in  a  hickory  shirt,  and  with  an  old  hat  flapping  over  his 
wizened  face,  I  bare-legged,  in  ragged  old  clothes — so 
we  drove  out  of  the  grassy  yard,  down  the  steep,  stony 
hill  that  led  to  the  main  valley  road,  and  along  the  hot, 
white  turnpike,  deep  with  the  dust  which  had  been  stirred 
up  by  the  teams  on  their  way  to  the  fair.  Gran'ther 
sniffed  the  air  jubilantly,  and  exchanged  hilarious  greet 
ings  with  the  people  who  constantly  overtook  old 
Peg's  jogging  trot.  Between  times  he  regaled  me  with 
spicy  stories  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands — they  seemed 
no  less  numerous  to  me  then — of  county  fairs  he  had  at 
tended  in  his  youth.  He  was  horrified  to  find  that  I  had 
never  been  even  to  one. 

"  '  Why,  Joey,  how  old  be  ye?  'Most  eight,  ain't  it? 
When  I  was  your  age  I  had  run  away  and  been  to  two 
fairs  an'  a  hanginV 

"  '  But  didn't  they  lick  you  when  you  got  home  ? '  I 
asked  shudderingly. 

"  '  You  bet  they  did ! '  cried  gran'ther  with  gusto. 

"  I  felt  the  world  changing  into  an  infinitely  larger 
place  with  every  word  he  said. 

"'Now,  this  is  somethin'  like!'  he  exclaimed,  as  we 
drew  near  to  Granville  and  fell  into  a  procession  of 
wagons  all  filled  with  country  people  in  their  best  clothes, 
who  looked  with  friendly  curiosity  at  the  little,  shriveled 
cripple,  his  face  shining  with  perspiring  animation,  and 
at  the  little  boy  beside  him,  his  bare  feet  dangling  high 
above  the  floor  of  the  battered  buckboard,  overcome  with 
the  responsibility  of  driving  a  horse  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life,  and  filled  with  such  a  flood  of  new  emotions  and 
ideas  that  he  must  have  been  quite  pale." 

Professor  Mallory  leaned  back  and  laughed  aloud  at  the 


THE  HEYDAY  OF  THE  BLOOD      43 

vision  he  had  been  evoking — laughed  with  so  joyous  a 
relish  in  his  reminiscences  that  the  drawn,  impatient 
face  of  his  listener  relaxed  a  little.  He  drew  a  long 
breath,  he  even  smiled  a  little  absently. 

"  Oh,  that  was  a  day !  "  went  on  the  professor,  still 
laughing  and  wiping  his  eyes.  "  Never  will  I  have  such 
another!  At  the  entrance  to  the  grounds  gran'ther 
stopped  me  while  he  solemnly  untied  the  knot  in  his  empty 
sleeve.  I  don't  know  what  kind  of  hairbrained  vow  he 
had  tied  up  in  it,  but  with  the  little  ceremony  disappeared 
every  trace  of  restraint,  and  we  plunged  head  over  ears 
into  the  saturnalia  of  delights  that  was  an  old-time  county 
fair. 

"  People  had  little  cash  in  those  days,  and  gran'ther's 
six  dollars  and  forty-three  cents  lasted  like  the  widow's 
cruse  of  oil.  We  went  to  see  the  fat  lady,  who,  if  she 
was  really  as  big  as  she  looked  to  me  then,  must  have 
weighed  at  least  a  ton.  My  admiration  for  gran'ther's 
daredevil  qualities  rose  to  infinity  when  he  entered  into 
free-and-easy  talk  with  her,  about  how  much  she  ate, 
and  could  she  raise  her  arms  enough  to  do  up  her  own 
hair,  and.  how  many  yards  of  velvet  it  took  to  make  her 
gorgeous,  gold-trimmed  robe.  She  laughed  a  great  deal 
at  us,  but  she  was  evidently  touched  by  his  humanjijlerest, 
for  she  confided  to  him  that  it  was  not  velvet  at  all,  but 
furniture  covering ;  and  when  we  went  away  she  pressed 
on  us  a  bag  of  peanuts.  She  said  she  had  more  peanuts 
than  she  could  eat — a  state  of  unbridled  opulence  which 
fitted  in  for  me  with  all  the  other  superlatives  of  that  day. 
"  We  saw  the  dog- faced  boy,  whom  we  did  not  like  at 
all;  gran'ther  expressing,  with  a  candidly  outspoken 
cynicism,  his  belief  that  '  them  whiskers  was  glued  to 


44  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

him.'  We  wandered  about  the  stock  exhibit,  gazing  at 
the  monstrous  oxen,  and  hanging  over  the  railings  where 
the  prize  pigs  lived  to  scratch  their  backs.  In  order  to 
miss  nothing,  we  even  conscientiously  passed  through  the 
Woman's  Building,  where  we  were  very  much  bored  by 
the  serried  ranks  of  preserve  jars. 

'  Sufferin'  Hezekiah ! '  cried  gran'ther  irritably. 
'  Who  cares  how  gooseberry  jel  looks.  If  they'd  give  a 
felly  a  taste,  now ' 

"  This  reminded  him  that  we  were  hungry,  and  we  went 
to  a  restaurant  under  a  tent,  where,  after  taking  stock  of 
the  wealth  that  yet  remained  of  gran'ther's  hoard,  he 
ordered  the  most  expensive  things  on  the  bill  of  fare." 

Professor  Mallory  suddenly  laughed  out  again.  "  Per 
haps  in  heaven,  but  certainly  not  until  then,  shall  I  ever 
taste  anything  so  ambrosial  as  that  fried  chicken  and 
coffee  ice-cream!  I  have  not  lived  in  vain  that  I  have 
such  a  memory  back  of  me ! " 

This  time  the  younger  man  laughed  with  the  narrator, 
settling  back  in  his  chair  as  the  professor  went  on : 

"  After  lunch  we  rode  on  the  merry-go-round,  both  of 
us,  gran'ther  clinging  desperately  with  his  one  hand  to  his 
red  camel's  wooden  hump,  and  crying  out  shrilly  to  me 
to  be  sure  and  not  lose  his  cane.  The  merry-go-round  had 
just  come  in  at  that  time,  and  gran'ther  had  never  experi 
enced  it  before.  After  the  first  giddy  flight  we  retired  to 
a  lemonade-stand  to  exchange  impressions,  and  finding 
that  we  both  alike  had  fallen  completely  under  the  spell 
of  the  new  sensation,  gran'ther  said  that  we  '  sh'd  keep  on 
a-ridin'  till  we'd  had  enough!  King  Solomon  couldn't 
tell  when  we'd  ever  git  a  chance  again ! '  So  we  re 
turned  to  the  charge,  and  rode  and  rode  and  rode,  through 


THE  HEYDAY  OF  THE  BLOOD      45 

blinding  clouds  of  happy  excitement,  so  it  seems  to  me 
now,  such  as  I  was  never  to  know  again.  The  sweat  was 
pouring  off  from  us,  and  we  had  tried  all  the  different 
animals  on  the  machine  before  we  could  tear  ourselves 
away  to  follow  the  crowd  to  the  race-track. 

"  We  took  reserved  seats,  which  cost  a  quarter  apiece, 
instead  of  the  unshaded  ten-cent  benches,  and  gran'ther 
began  at  once  to  pour  out  to  me  a  flood  of  horse-talk  and 
knowing  race-track  aphorisms,  which  finally  made  a 
young  fellow  sitting  next  to  us  laugh  superciliously. 
Gran'ther  turned  on  him  heatedly. 

"  '  I  bet-che  fifty  cents  I  pick  the  winner  in  the  next 
race ! '  he  said  sportily. 

"  '  Done ! '  said  the  other,  still  laughing. 

"  Gran'ther  picked  a  big  black  mare,  who  came  in  al 
most  last,  but  he  did  not  flinch.  As  he  paid  over  the 
half-dollar  he  said : '  Everybody's  likely  to  make  mistakes 
about  some  things ;  King  Solomon  was  a  fool  in  the  head 
about  women-folks !  I  bet-che  a  dollar  I  pick  the  winner 
in  this  race ! '  and  '  Done ! '  said  the  disagreeable  young 
man,  still  laughing.  I  gasped,  for  I  knew  we  had  only 
eighty-seven  cents  left,  but  gran'ther  shot  me  a  command 
to  silence  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eyes,  and  announced 
that  he  bet  on  the  sorrel  gelding. 

"  If  I  live  to  be  a  hundred  and  break  the  bank  at  Monte 
Carlo  three  times  a  week,"  said  Mallory,  shaking  his  head 
reminiscently,  "  I  could  not  know  a  tenth  part  of  the 
frantic  excitement  of  that  race  or  of  the  mad  triumph 
when  our  horse  won.  Gran'ther  cast  his  hat  upon  the 
ground,  screaming  like  a  steam-calliope  with  exultation 
as  the  sorrel  swept  past  the  judges'  stand  ahead  of  all  the 
others,  and  I  jumped  up  and  down  in  an  agony  of 


46  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

delight  which  was  almost  more  than  my  little  body  could 
hold. 

"After  that  we  went  away,  feeling  that  the  world 
could  hold  nothing  more  glorious.  It  was  five  o'clock, 
and  we  decided  to  start  back.  We  paid  for  Peggy's  din 
ner  out  of  the  dollar  we  had  won  on  the  race — I  say 
'  we/  for  by  that  time  we  were  welded  into  one  organism 
— and  we  still  had  a  dollar  and  a  quarter  left.  'While 
ye're  about  it,  always  go  the  whole  hog ! '  said  gran'ther, 
and  we  spent  twenty  minutes  in  laying  out  that  money 
in  trinkets  for  all  the  folks  at  home.  Then,  dusty,  penni 
less,  laden  with  bundles,  we  bestowed  our  exhausted 
bodies  and  our  uplifted  hearts  in  the  old  buckboard,  and 
turned  Peg's  head  toward  the  mountains.  We  did  not 
talk  much  during  that  drive,  and  though  I  thought  at  the 
time  only  of  the  carnival  of  joy  we  had  left,  I  can  now 
recall  every  detail  of  the  trip — how  the  sun  sank  behind 
Indian  Mountain,  a  peak  I  had  known  before  only 
through  distant  views;  then,  as  we  journeyed  on,  how 
the  stars  came  out  above  Hemlock  Mountain — our  own 
home  mountain  behind  our  house,  and  later,  how  the 
fireflies  filled  the  darkening  meadows  along  the  river 
below  us,  so  that  we  seemed  to  be  floating  between  the 
steady  stars  of  heaven  and  their  dancing,  twinkling  re 
flection  in  the  valley. 

"  Gran'ther's  dauntless  spirit  still  surrounded  me.  I 
put  out  of  mind  doubts  of  our  reception  at  home,  and 
lost  myself  in  delightful  ruminatings  on  the  splendors  of 
the  day.  At  first,  every  once  in  a  while,  gran'ther  made 
a  brief  remark,  such  as,  '  'Twas  the  hind-quarters  of  the 
sorrel  I  bet  on.  He  was  the  only  one  in  the  hull  kit  and 
bilin'  of  'em  that  his  quarters  didn't  fall  away  ';  or,  '  You 


THE  HEYDAY  OF  THE  BLOOD      47 

needn't  tell  me  that  them  Siamese  twins  ain't  unpinned 
every  night  as  separate  as  you  and  me ! '  But  later  on,  as 
the  damp  evening  air  began  to  bring  on  his  asthma, 
he  subsided  into  silence,  only  broken  by  great  gasping 
coughs. 

"  These  were  heard  by  the  anxious,  heart-sick  watch 
ers  at  home,  and,  as  old  Peg  stumbled  wearily  up  the  hill, 
father  came  running  down  to  meet  us.  '  Where  you  be'n  ? ' 
he  demanded,  his  face  pale  and  stern  in  the  light  of  his 
lantern.  '  We  be'n  to  the  county  fair ! '  croaked  gran'ther 
with  a  last  flare  of  triumph,  and  fell  over  sideways 
against  me.  Old  Peg  stopped  short,  hanging  her  head 
as  if  she,  too,  were  at  the  limit  of  her  strength.  I  was 
frightfully  tired  myself,  and  frozen  with  terror  of  what 
father  would  say.  Gran'ther's  collapse  was  the  last  straw. 
I  began  to  cry  loudly,  but  father  ignored  my  distress 
with  an  indifference  which  cut  me  to  the  heart.  He 
lifted  gran'ther  out  of  the  buckboard,  carrying  the  uncon 
scious  little  old  body  into  the  house  without  a  glance  back 
ward  at  me.  But  when  I  crawled  down  to  the  ground, 
sobbing  and  digging  my  fists  into  my  eyes,  I  felt  mother's 
arms  close  around  me. 

"  '  Oh,  poor,  naughty  little  Joey ! '  she  said.    '  Mother's 
bad,  dear  little  boy!"' 

Professor  Mallory  stopped  short. 
"Perhaps  that's  something  else  I'll  know  again  in 
heaven,"  he  said  soberly,  and  waited  a  moment  before  he 
went  on :  "  Well,  that  was  the  end  of  our  day.  I  was  so 
worn  out  that  I  fell  asleep  over  my  supper,  in  spite  of 
the  excitement  in  the  house  about  sending  for  a  doctor 
for  gran'ther,  who  was,  so  one  of  my  awe-struck  sisters 
told  me,  having  some  kind  of  '  fits.'  Mother  must  have 


48  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

put  me  to  bed,  for  the  next  thing  I  remember,  she  was 
shaking  me  by  the  shoulder  and  saying,  '  Wake  up,  Joey. 
Your  great-grandfather  wants  to  speak  to  you.  He's 
been  suffering  terribly  all  night,  and  the  doctor  think's  he's 
dying.' 

"  I  followed  her  into  gran'ther's  room,  where  the 
family  was  assembled  about  the  bed.  Gran'ther  lay 
drawn  up  in  a  ball,  groaning  so  dreadfully  that  I  felt 
a  chill  like  cold  water  at  the  roots  of  my  hair;  but  a 
moment  or  two  after  I  came  in,  all  at  once  he  gave  a 
great  sigh  and  relaxed,  stretching  out  his  legs  and  laying 
his  arms  down  on  the  coverlid.  He  looked  at  me  and  at 
tempted  a  smile. 

'  Well,  it  was  wuth  it,  warn't  it,  Joey  ? '  he  said 
gallantly,  and  closed  his  eyes  peacefully  to  sleep." 

"Did  he  die?"  asked  the  younger  professor,  leaning 
forward  eagerly. 

"  Die  ?  Gran'ther  Pehdleton  ?  Not  much !  He  came  tot 
tering  down  to  breakfast  the  next  morning,  as  white  as 
an  old  ghost,  with  no  voice  left,  his  legs  trembling  under 
him,  but  he  kept  the  whole  family  an  hour  and  a  half  at 
the  table,  telling  them  in  a  loud  whisper  all  about  the 
fair,  until  father  said  really  he  would  have  to  take  us  to 
the  one  next  year.  Afterward  he  sat  out  on  the  porch 
watching  old  Peg  graze  around  the  yard.  I  thought  he 
was  in  one  of  his  absent-minded  fits,  but  when  I  came  out, 
he  called  me  to  him,  and,  setting  his  lips  to  my  ear,  he 
whispered : 

"  '  An'  the  seventh  is  a-goin'  down-hill  fast,  so  I  hear! ' 
He  chuckled  to  himself  over  this  for  some  time,  wagging 
his  head  feebly,  and  then  he  said :  '  I  tell  ye,  Joey,  I've 
lived  a  long  time,  and  I've  lamed  a  lot  about  the  way 


THE  HEYDAY  OF  THE  BLOOD      49 

folks  is  made.  The  trouble  with  most  of  'em  is,  they're 
'f raid-cats!  As  Jeroboam  Warner  used  to  say— he  was 
in  the  same  rigiment  with  me  in  1812— the  only  way  to 
manage  this  business  of  livin'  is  to  give  a  whoop  and  let 
her  rip!  If  ye  just  about  half-live,  ye  just  the  same  as 
half-die;  and  if  ye  spend  yer  time  half-dyin',  some  day  ye 
turn  in  and  die  all  over,  without  rightly  meanin'  to  at 
all— just  a  kind  o'  bad  habit  ye've  got  yerself  inter.' 
Gran'ther  fell  into  a  meditative  silence  for  a  moment. 
'  Jeroboam,  he  said  that  the  evenin'  before  the  battle  of 
Lundy's  Lane,  and  he  got  killed  the  next  day.  Some 
live,  and  some  die;  but  folks  that  live  all  over  die  happy, 
anyhow !  Now  I  tell  you  what's  my  motto,  an'  what  I've 

lived  to  be  eighty-eight  on 

Professor  Mallory  stood  up  and,  towering  over^the 
younger  man,  struck  one  hand  into  the  other  as  he  cried : 
"  This  was  the  motto  he  told  me:  '  Live  while  you  live, 
and  then  die  and  be  done  with  it ! ' 


AS  A  BIRD  OUT  OF  THE  SNARE 

AFTER  the  bargain  was  completed  and  the  timber  mer 
chant  had  gone  away,  Jehiel  Hawthorn  walked  stiffly  to 
the  pine-tree  and  put  his  horny  old  fist  against  it,  looking 
up  to  its  spreading  top  with  an  expression  of  hostile 
exultation  in  his  face.  The  neighbor  who  had  been  called 
to  witness  the  transfer  of  Jehiel's  woodland  looked  at 
him  curiously. 

"  That  was  quite  a  sight  of  money  to  come  in  without 
your  expectin',  wa'n't  it?  "  he  said,  fumbling  awkwardly 
for  an  opening  to  the  question  he  burned  to  ask. 

Jehiel  did  not  answer.  The  two  old  men  stood  silent, 
looking  down  the  valley,  lying  like  a  crevasse  in  a  glacier 
between  the  towering  white  mountains.  The  sinuous 
course  of  the  frozen  river  was  almost  black  under  the 
slaty  sky  of  March. 

"  Seems  kind  o'  providential,  havin'  so  much  money 
come  to  you  just  now,  when  your  sister-in-law's  jest 
died,  and  left  you  the  first  time  in  your  life  without  any 
body  you  got  to  stay  and  see  to,  don't  it  ?  "  commented  the 
neighbor  persistently. 

Jehiel  made  a  vague  sign  with  his  head. 

"  I  s'pose  likely  you'll  be  startin'  aout  to  travel  and 
see  foreign  parts,  same's  you've  always  planned,  won't 
yOU — or  maybe  you  cal'late  you  be  too  old  now?  " 

Jehiel  gave  no  indication  that  he  had  heard.  His  faded 
old  blue  eyes  were  fixed  steadily  on  the  single  crack  in 


52  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

the  rampart  of  mountains,  through  which  the  afternoon 
train  was  just  now  leaving  the  valley.  Its  whistle  echoed 
back  hollowly,  as  it  fled  away  from  the  prison  walls  into 
the  great  world. 

The  neighbor  stiffened  in  offended  pride.  "  I  bid 
you  good-night,  Mr.  Hawthorn,"  he  said  severely,  and 
stumped  down  the  steep,  narrow  road  leading  to  the 
highway  in  the  valley. 

After  he  had  disappeared  Jehiel  turned  to  the  tree  and 
leaned  his  forehead  against  it.  He  was  so  still  he  seemed 
a  part  of  the  great  pine.  He  stood  so  till  the  piercing  chill 
of  evening  chilled  him  through,  and  when  he  looked  again 
about  him  it  was  after  he  had  lived  his  life  all  through 
in  a  brief  and  bitter  review. 

It  began  with  the  tree  and  it  ended  with  the  tree,  and 
in  spite  of  the  fever  of  unrest  in  his  heart  it  was  as 
stationary  as  any  rooted  creature  of  the  woods.  When 
he  was  eleven  and  his  father  went  away  to  the  Civil  War, 
he  had  watched  him  out  of  sight  with  no  sorrow,  only  a 
burning  envy  of  the  wanderings  that  lay  before  the  sol 
dier.  A  little  later,  when  it  was  decided  that  he  should 
go  to  stay  with  his  married  sister,  since  she  was  left  alone 
by  her  husband's  departure  to  the  war,  he  turned  his 
back  on  his  home  with  none  of  a  child's  usual  reluctance, 
but  with  an  eager  delight  in  the  day-long  drive  to  the 
other  end  of  the  valley.  That  was  the  longest  journey  he 
had  ever  taken,  the  man  of  almost  three-score  thought, 
with  an  aching  resentment  against  Fate. 

Still,  those  years  with  his  sister,  filled  with  labor  be 
yond  his  age  as  they  were,  had  been  the  happiest  of  his 
life.  In  an  almost  complete  isolation  the  two  had  toiled 
together  five  years,  the  most  impressionable  of  his  life; 


AS  A  BIRD  OUT  OF  THE  SNARE  53 

and  all  his  affection  centered  on  the  silent,  loving,  always 
comprehending  sister.  His  own  father  and  mother  grew 
to  seem  far  away  and  alien,  and  his  sister  came  to  be 
like  a  part  of  himself.  To  her  alone  of  all  living  souls 
had  he  spoken  freely  of  his  passion  for  adventuring  far 
from  home,  which  devoured  his  boy-soul.  He  was  six 
teen  when  her  husband  finally  came  back  from  the  war, 
and  he  had  no  secrets  from  the  young  matron  of  twenty- 
six,  who  listened  with  such  wide  tender  eyes  of  sympathy 
to  his  half-frantic  outpourings  of  longing  to  escape  from 
the  dark,  narrow  valley  where  his  fathers  had  lived  their 
dark,  narrow  lives. 

The  day  before  he  went  back  to  his  own  home,  now  so 
strange  to  him,  he  was  out  with  her,  searching  for  some 
lost  turkey-chicks,  and  found  one  with  its  foot  caught 
in  a  tangle  of  rusty  wire.  The  little  creature  had  beaten 
itself  almost  to  death  in  its  struggle  to  get  away.  Kneel 
ing  in  the  grass,  and  feeling  the  wild  palpitations  of  its 
heart  under  his  rescuing  hand,  he  had  called  to  his  sister, 
"  Oh,  look !  Poor  thing !  It's  'most  dead,  and  yet  it 
ain't  really  hurt  a  mite,  only  desperate,  over  bein'  held 
fast."  His  voice  broke  in  a  sudden  wave  of  sympathy : 
"  Oh,  ain't  it  terrible  to  feel  so !  " 

For  a  moment  the  young  mother  put  her  little  son 
aside  and  looked  at  her  brother  with  brooding  eyes. 
A  little  later  she  said  with  apparent  irrelevance,  "  Jehiel, 
as  soon  as  you're  a  man  grown,  I'll  help  you  to  get  off. 
You  shall  be  a  sailor,  if  you  like,  and  go  around  the 
world,  and  bring  back  coral  to  baby  and  me." 

A  chilling  premonition  fell  on  the  lad.  "  I  don't  be 
lieve  it !  "  he  said,  with  tears  in  his  eyes.  "  I  just  believe 
I've  got  to  stay  here  in  this  hole  all  my  life." 


54  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

His  sister  looked  off  at  the  tops  of  the  trees.  Finally, 
"Surely  He  shall  deliver  thee  from  the  snare  of  the 
fowler,"  she  quoted  dreamily. 

When  she  came  to  see  him  and  their  parents  a  few 
months  later,  she  brought  him  a  little  square  of  crimson 
silk,  on  which  she  had  worked  in  tiny  stitches,  "  Surely 
He  shall  deliver  thee  from  the  snare  of  the  fowler."  She 
explained  to  her  father  and  mother  that  it  was  a  "  text- 
ornament  "  for  Jehiel  to  hang  up  over  his  desk ;  but 
she  drew  the  boy  aside  and  showed  him  that  the  silk 
was  only  lightly  caught  down  to  the  foundation. 

"  Underneath  is  another  text,"  she  said,  "  and  when 
your  day  of  freedom  comes  I  want  you  should  promise 
me  to  cut  the  stitches,  turn  back  the  silk,  and  take  the 
second  text  for  your  motto,  so  you'll  remember  to  be 
properly  grateful.  This  is  the  second  text."  She  put 
her  hands  on  his  shoulders  and  said  in  a  loud,  exultant 
voice,  "  My  soul  is  escaped  as  a  bird  out  of  the  snare  of 
the  fowler.  The  snare  is  broken  and  I  am  escaped." 

For  answer  the  boy  pulled  her  eagerly  to  the  window 
and  pointed  to  a  young  pine-tree  that  stood  near  the 
house. 

"  Sister,  that  tree's  just  as  old  as  I  be.  I've  prayed 
to  God,  and  I've  promised  myself  that  before  it's  as  tall 
as  the  ridge-pole  of  the  house,  I'll  be  on  my  way." 

As  this  scene  came  before  his  eyes,  the  white-haired 
man,  leaning  against  the  great  pine,  looked  up  at  the 
lofty  crown  of  green  wreathing  the  giant's  head  and 
shook  his  fist  at  it.  He  hated  every  inch  of  its  height, 
for  every  inch  meant  an  enforced  renunciation  that  had 
brought  him  bitterness  and  a  sense  of  failure. 

His  sister  had  died  the  year  after  she  had  given  him 


AS  A  BIRD  OUT  OF  THE  SNARE  55 

the  double  text,  and  his  father  the  year  after  that.  He 
was  left  thus,  the  sole  support  of  his  ailing  mother,  who 
transferred  to  the  silent,  sullen  boy  the  irresistible  rule 
of  complaining  weakness  with  which  she  had  governed 
his  father.  It  was  thought  she  could  not  live  long,  and 
the  boy  stood  in  terror  of  a  sudden  death  brought  on  by 
displeasure  at  some  act  of  his.  In  the  end,  however,  she 
died  quietly  in  her  bed,  an  old  woman  of  seventy-three, 
nursed  by  her  daughter-in-law,  the  widow  of  Jehiel's 
only  brother.  Her  place  in  the  house  was  taken  by 
Jehiel's  sister-in-law,  a  sickly,  helpless  woman,  alone  in 
the  world  except  for  Jehiel,  and  all  the  neighbors  con 
gratulated  him  on  having  a  housekeeper  ready  to  his 
hand.  He  said  nothing. 

By  that  time,  indeed,  he  had  sunk  into  a  harsh  silence 
on  all  topics.  He  went  through  the  exhausting  routine 
of  farming  with  an  iron-like  endurance,  watched  with 
set  lips  the  morning  and  afternoon  trains  leave  the  val 
ley,  and  noted  the  growth  of  the  pine-tree  with  a  burn 
ing  heart.  His  only  recreation  was  collecting  time-tables, 
prospectuses  of  steamship  companies,  and  what  few 
books  of  travel  he  could  afford.  The  only  society  he  did 
not  shun  was  that  of  itinerant  peddlers  or  tramps,  and 
occasionally  a  returned  missionary  on  a  lecture  tour. 

And  always  the  pine-tree  had  grown,  insolent  in  the 
pride  of  a  creature  set  in  the  right  surroundings.  The 
imprisoned  man  had  felt  himself  dwarfed  by  its  height. 
But  now,  he  looked  up  at  it  again,  and  laughed  aloud. 
It  had  come  late,  but  it  had  come.  He  was  fifty-seven 
years  old,  almost  three-score,  but  all  his  life  was  still  to 
be  lived.  He  said  to  himself  that  some  folks  lived  their 
lives  while  they  did  their  work,  but  he  had  done  all  his 


56  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

tasks  first,  and  now  he  could  live.  The  unexpected  ar 
rival  of  the  timber  merchant  and  the  sale  of  that  piece 
of  land  he'd  never  thought  would  bring  him  a  cent — was 
not  that  an  evident  sign  that  Providence  was  with  him? 
He  was  too  old  and  broken  now  to  work  his  way  about 
as  he  had  planned  at  first,  but  here  had  come  this  six 
hundred  dollars  like  rain  from  the  sky.  He  would  start 
as  soon  as  he  could  sell  his  stock. 

The  thought  reminded  him  of  his  evening  chores,  and 
he  set  off  for  the  barn  with  a  fierce  jubilation  that  it  was 
almost  the  last  time  he  would  need  to  milk.  How  far, 
he  wondered,  could  he  go  on  that  money?  He  hurried 
through  his  work  and  into  the  house  to  his  old  desk. 
The  faded  text-ornament  stood  on  the  top  shelf,  but  he 
did  not  see  it,  as  he  hastily  tumbled  out  all  the  time 
tables  and  sailing-lists.  The  habit  of  looking  at  them 
with  the  yearning  bitterness  of  unreconciled  deprivation 
was  still  so  strong  on  him  that  even  as  he  handled  them 
eagerly,  he  hated  them  for  the  associations  of  years  of 
misery  they  brought  back  to  him. 

Where  should  he  go  ?  He  was  dazed  by  the  unlimited 
possibilities  before  him.  To  Boston  first,  as  the  nearest 
seaport.  He  had  taken  the  trip  in  his  mind  so  many 
times  that  he  knew  the  exact  minute  when  the  train 
would  cross  the  State  line  and  he  would  be  really  escaped 
from  the  net  which  had  bound  him  all  his  life.  From 
Boston  to  Jamaica  as  the  nearest  place  that  was  quite, 
quite  different  from  Vermont.  He  had  no  desire  to  see 
Europe  or  England.  Life  there  was  too  much  like  what 
he  had  known.  He  wanted  to  be  in  a  country  where 
nothing  should  remind  him  of  his  past.  From  Jamaica 
where  ?  His  stiff  old  fingers  painfully  traced  out  a  steam- 


AS  A  BIRD  OUT  OF  THE  SNARE  57 

ship  line  to  the  Isthmus  and  thence  to  Colombia.  He 
knew  nothing  about  that  country.  All  the  better.  It 
would  be  the  more  foreign.  Only  this  he  knew,  that  no 
body  in  that  tropical  country  "  farmed  it,"  and  that  was 
where  he  wanted  to  go.  From  Colombia  around  the  Cape 
to  Argentina.  He  was  aghast  at  the  cost,  but  instantly 
decided  that  he  would  go  steerage.  There  would  be  more 
real  foreigners  to  be  seen  that  way,  and  his  money  would 
go  twice  as  far. 

To  Buenos  Ayres,  then.  He  did  not  even  attempt  to 
pronounce  this  name,  though  its  strange,  inexplicable  look 
on  the  page  was  a  joy  to  him.  From  there  by  muleback 
and  afoot  over  the  Andes  to  Chile.  He  knew  something 
about  that  trip.  A  woman  who  had  taught  in  the  Meth 
odist  missionary  school  in  Santiago  de  Chile  had  taken 
that  journey,  and  he  had  heard  her  give  a  lecture  on  it. 
He  was  the  sexton  of  the  church  and  heard  all  the  lectures 
free.  At  Santiago  de  Chile  (he  pronounced  it  with  a 
strange  distortion  of  the  school-teacher's  bad  accent)  he 
would  stay  for  a  while  and  just  live  and  decide  what  to 
do  next.  His  head  swam  with  dreams  and  visions,  and 
his  heart  thumped  heavily  against  his  old  ribs.  The 
clock  striking  ten  brought  him  back  to  reality.  He  stood 
up  with  a  gesture  of  exultation  almost  fierce.  *  That's 
just  the  time  when  the  train  crosses  the  State  line! "  he 
said. 

He  slept  hardly  at  all  that  night,  waking  with  great 
starts,  and  imagining  himself  in  strange  foreign  places, 
and  then  recognizing  with  a  scornful  familiarity  the  worn 
old  pieces  of  furniture  in  his  room.  He  noticed  at  these 
times  that  it  was  very  cold,  and  lifelong  habit  made  him 
reflect  that  he  would  better  go  early  to  the  church  because 


58  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

it  would  be  hard  to  get  up  steam  enough  to  warm  the 
building  before  time  for  service.  After  he  had  finished 
his  morning  chores  and  was  about  to  start  he  noticed 
that  the  thermometer  stood  at  four  above  zero. 

That  was  certainly  winter  temperature;  the  snow  lay 
like  a  heavy  shroud  on  all  the  dead  valley,  but  the  strange, 
blind  instinct  of  a  man  who  has  lived  close  to  the  earth 
stirred  within  him.  He  looked  at  the  sky  and  the  moun 
tains  and  held  up  his  bare  palm.  "  I  shouldn't  be  sur 
prised  if  the  spring  break-up  was  near,"  he  said.  "  I 
guess  this  is  about  the  last  winter  day  we'll  get." 

The  church  was  icy  cold,  and  he  toiled  in  the  cellar, 
stuffing  wood  into  the  flaming  maw  of  the  steam-heater, 
till  it  was  time  to  ring  the  bell.  As  he  gave  the  last 
stroke,  Deacon  Bradley  approached  him.  "  Jehiel,  I've 
got  a  little  job  of  repairing  I  want  you  should  do  at  my 
store,"  he  said  in  the  loud,  slow  speech  of  a  man  im 
portant  in  the  community.  "  Come  to  the  store  to-mor 
row  morning  and  see  about  it."  He  passed  on  into  his 
pew,  which  was  at  the  back  of  the  church  near  a  steam 
radiator,  so  that  he  was  warm,  no  matter  what  the 
weather  was. 

Jehiel  Hawthorn  went  out  and  stood  on  the  front 
steps  in  the  winter  sunshine  and  his  heart  swelled  ex- 
ultingly  as  he  looked  across  at  the  deacon's  store.  "  I 
wish  I'd  had  time  to  tell  him  I'd  do  no  repairs  for  him 
to-morrow,  nor  any  time — that  I'm  going  to  travel  and 
see  the  world." 

The  last  comers  disappeared  in  the  church  and  the 
sound  of  singing  came  faintly  to  Jehiel's  ears.  Although 
he  was  the  sexton  he  rarely  was  in  church  for  the  service, 
using  his  duties  as  an  excuse  for  absence.  He  felt  that  it 


AS  A  BIRD  OUT  OF  THE  SNARE  59 

was  not  for  him  to  take  part  in  prayer  and  thanksgiving. 
As  a  boy  he  had  prayed  for  the  one  thing  he  wanted,  and 
what  had  it  come  to? 

A  penetrating  cold  wind  swept  around  the  corner  and 
he  turned  to  go  inside  to  see  about  the  steam-pipes.  In 
the  outer  hall  he  noticed  that  the  service  had  progressed 
to  the  responsive  readings.  As  he  opened  the  door  of  the 
church  the  minister  read  rapidly,  "  Praised  be  the  Lord 
who  hath  not  given  us  over  for  a  prey  unto  their  teeth." 
The  congregation  responded  in  a  timid  inarticulate 
gabble,  above  which  rose  Deacon  Bradley's  loud  voice,— 
"  Our  soul  is  escaped  even  as  a  bird  out  of  the  snare  of 
the  fowler.  The  snare  is  broken  and  we  are  escaped." 
He  read  the  responses  in  a  slow,  booming  roar,  at  least 
half  a  sentence  behind  the  rest,  but  the  minister  always 
waited  for  him.  As  he  finished,  he  saw  the  sexton 
standing  in  the  open  door.  "  A  little  more  steam,  Jehiel," 
he  added  commandingly,  running  the  words  on  to  the  end 
of  the  text. 

Jehiel  turned  away  silently,  but  as  he  stumbled  through 
the  dark,  unfinished  part  of  the  cellar  he  thought  to  him 
self,  "  Well,  that's  the  last  time  he'll  give  me  an  order 
for  one  while !  " 

Then  the  words  of  the  text  he  had  heard  came  back 
to  his  mind  with  a  half-superstitious  shock  at  the  coin 
cidence.  He  had  forgotten  all  about  that  hidden  part  of 
the  text-ornament.  Why,  now  that  had  come  true !  He 
ought  to  have  cut  the  stitches  and  torn  off  the  old  text  last 
night.  He  would,  as  soon  as  he  went  home.  He  wished 
his  sister  were  alive  to  know,  and  suddenly,  there  in  the 
dark,  he  wondered  if  perhaps  she  did  know. 

As  he  passed  the  door  to  the  rooms  of  the  Ladies' 


60  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

Auxiliary  Society  he  noticed  that  it  was  ajar,  and  saw 
through  the  crack  that  there  was  a  sleeping  figure  on  the 
floor  near  the  stove — a  boy  about  sixteen.  When  Jehiel 
stepped  softly  in  and  looked  at  him,  the  likeness  to  his 
own  sister  struck  him  even  before  he  recognized  the  lad 
as  his  great-nephew,  the  son  of  the  child  he  had  helped  his 
sister  to  care  for  all  those  years  ago. 

"Why,  what's  Nathaniel  doin'  here?"  he  asked  him 
self,  in  surprise.  He  had  not  known  that  the  boy  was 
even  in  town,  for  he  had  been  on  the  point  of  leaving  to 
enlist  in  the  navy.  Family  matters  could  not  have  de 
tained  him,  for  he  was  quite  alone  in  the  world  since  both 
his  father  and  his  mother  were  dead  and  his  stepmother 
had  married  again.  Under  his  great-uncle's  gaze  the 
lad  opened  his  eyes  with  a  start  and  sat  up  confused. 
"  What's  the  matter  with  you,  Nat?"  asked  the  older 
man  not  ungently.  He  was  thinking  that  probably  he 
had  looked  like  that  at  sixteen.  The  boy  stared  at  him  a 
moment,  and  then,  leaning  his  head  on  a  chair,  he  began 
to  cry.  Sitting  thus,  crouched  together,  he  looked  like 
a  child. 

"Why,  Natty,  what's  the  trouble?"  asked  his  uncle, 
alarmed. 

"  I  came  off  here  because  I  couldn't  hold  in  at  home 
any  longer,"  answered  the  other  between  sobs.  "  You 
see  I  can't  go  away.  Her  husband  treats  her  so  bad  she 
can't  stay  with  him.  I  don't  blame  her,  she  says  she  just 
can't!  So  she's  come  back  and  she  ain't  well,  and  she's 
goin'  to  have  a  baby,  and  I've  got  to  stay  and  support 
her.  Mr.  Bradley's  offered  me  a  place  in  his  store  and 
I've  got  to  give  up  goin'  to  the  navy."  He  suddenly 
realized  the  unmanliness  of  his  attitude,  rose  to  his  feet, 


AS  A  BIRD  OUT  OF  THE  SNARE  61 

closing  his  lips  tightly,  and  faced  the  older  man  with  a 
resolute  expression  of  despair  in  his  young  eyes. 

"  Uncle  Jehiel,  it  does  seem  to  me  I  can't  have  it  so ! 
All  my  life  I've  looked  forward  to  bein'  a  sailor  and  goin' 
around  the  world,  and  all.  I  just  hate  the  valley  and  the 
mountains!  But  I  guess  I  got  to  stay.  She's  only  my 
stepmother,  I  know,  but  she  was  always  awful  good  to 
me,  and  she  hasn't  got  anybody  else  to  look  after  her." 
His  voice  broke,  and  he  put  his  arm  up  in  a  crook  over  his 
face.  "  But  it's  awful  hard !  I  feel  like  a  bird  that's 
got  caught  in  a  snare." 

His  uncle  had  grown  very  pale  during  this  speech,  and 
at  the  last  words  he  recoiled  with  an  exclamation  of  hor 
ror.  There  was  a  silence  in  which  he  looked  at  his 
nephew  with  the  wide  eyes  of  a  man  who  sees  a  specter. 
Then  he  turned  away  into  the  furnace-room,  and  picking 
up  his  lunch-box  brought  it  back.  "  Here,  you,"  he  said 
roughly,  "  part  of  what's  troublin'  you  is  that  you  ain't 
had  any  breakfast.  You  eat  this  and  you'll  feel  better. 
I'll  be  back  in  a  minute." 

He  went  away  blindly  into  the  darkest  part  of  the 
cellar.  It  was  very  black  there,  but  his  eyes  stared  wide 
before  him.  It  was  very  cold,  but  drops  of  sweat  stood 
on  his  forehead  as  if  he  were  in  the  hay-field.  He  was 
alone,  but  his  lips  moved  from  time  to  time,  and  once  he 
called  out  in  some  loud,  stifled  exclamation  which  re 
sounded  hollowly  in  the  vault-like  place.  He  was  there 
a  long  time. 

When  he  went  back  into  the  furnace  cellar,  he  found 
Nathaniel  sitting  before  the  fire.  The  food  and  warmth 
had  brought  a  little  color  into  his  pale  face,  but  it  was 
still  set  in  a  mask  of  tragic  desolation. 


62  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

As  his  uncle  came  in,  he  exclaimed,  "  Why,  Uncle 
Jehiel,  you  look  awful  bad.  Are  you  sick?  " 

"  Yes,  I  be,"  said  the  other  harshly,  "  but  Hain't 
nothin'.  It'll  pass  after  a  while.  Nathaniel,  I've  thought 
of  a  way  you  can  manage.  You  know  your  uncle's  wife 
died  this  last  week  and  that  leaves  me  without  any  house 
keeper.  What  if  your  stepmother  sh'd  come  and  take 
care  of  me  and  I'll  take  care  of  her.  I've  just  sold  a 
piece  of  timber  land  I  never  thought  to  get  a  cent  out  of, 
and  that'll  ease  things  up  so  we  can  hire  help  if  she  ain't 
strong  enough  to  do  the  work." 

Nathaniel's  face  flushed  in  a  relief  which  died  quickly 
down  to  a  somber  hopelessness.  He  faced  his  uncle  dog 
gedly.  "  Not  much,  Uncle  Jehiel !  "  he  said  heavily. 
"  I  ain't  a-goin'  to  hear  to  such  a  thing.  I  know  all  about 
your  want  in'  to  get  away  from  the  valley — you  take  that 
money  and  go  yourself  and  I'll " 

Hopelessness  and  resolution  were  alike  struck  out  of 
his  face  by  the  fury  of  benevolence  with  which  the  old 
man  cut  him  short.  "  Don't  you  dare  to  speak  a  word 
against  it ,  boy ! "  cried  Jehiel  in  a  labored  anguish. 
"  Good  Lord !  I'm  only  doin'  it  for  you  because  I  have 
to!  I've  been  through  what  you're  layin'  out  for  your 
self  an'  stood  it,  somehow,  an'  now  I'm  'most  done  with 
it  all.  But  'twould  be  like  beginnin'  it  all  again  to  see 
you  startin'  in.' 

The  boy  tried  to  speak,  but  he  raised  his  voice.  "  No, 
I  couldn't  stand  it  all  over  again.  'Twould  cut  in  to  the 
places  where  I've  got  calloused."  Seeing  through  the 
other's  stupor  the  beginnings  of  an  irresolute  opposition, 
he  flung  himself  upon  him  in  a  strange  and  incredible 
appeal,  crying  out,  "  Oh,  you  must!  You  got  to  go!" 


AS  A  BIRD  OUT  OF  THE  SNARE  63 

commanding  and  imploring  in  the  same  incoherent  sen 
tence,  struggling  for  speech,  and  then  hanging  on  Na 
thaniel's  answer  in  a  sudden  wild  silence.  It  was  as 
though  his  next  breath  depended  on  the  boy's  decision. 

It  was  very  still  in  the  twilight  where  they  stood.  The 
faint  murmur  of  a  prayer  came  down  from  above,  and 
while  it  lasted  both  were  as  though  held  motionless  by 
its  mesmeric  monotony.  Then,  at  the  boom  of  the  organ, 
the  lad's  last  shred  of  self-control  vanished.  He  burst 
again  into  muffled  weary  sobs,  the  light  from  the  furnace 
glistening  redly  on  his  streaming  cheeks.  "  It  ain't  right, 
Uncle  Jehiel.  I  feel  as  though  I  was  murderin'  some- 
thin'  !  But  I  can't  help  it.  I'll  go,  I'll  do  as  you  say, 

but " 

His  uncle's  agitation  went  out  like  a  wind-blown  flame. 
He,  too,  drooped  in  an  utter  fatigue.  "  Never  mind, 
Natty,"  he  said  tremulously,  "it'll  all  come  out  right 
somehow.  Just  you  do  as  Uncle  Jehiel  says." 

A  trampling  upstairs  told  him  that  the  service  was 
over.  "  You  run  home  now  and  tell  her  I'll  be  over  this 
afternoon  to  fix  things  up." 

He  hurried  up  the  stairs  to  open  the  front  doors,  but 
Deacon  Bradley  was  before  him.  '  You're  late,  Jehiel," 
he  said  severely,  "  and  the  church  was  cold." 

"  I  know,  Deacon,"  said  the  sexton  humbly,  "  but  it 
won't  happen  again.  And  I'll  be  around  the  first  thing 
in  the  morning  to  do  that  job  for  you."  His  voice 
sounded  dull  and  lifeless. 

"What's  the  matter?"  asked  the  deacon.  "Be  you 
sick?" 

"Yes,  I  be,  but  'tain't  nothin'.     Twill  pass  after  a 

while." 


64  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

That  evening,  as  he  walked  home  after  service,  he  told 
himself  that  he  had  never  known  so  long  a  day.  It 
seemed  longer  than  all  the  rest  of  his  life.  Indeed  he 
felt  that  some  strange  and  racking  change  had  come  upon 
him  since  the  morning,  as  though  he  were  not  the  same 
person,  as  though  he  had  been  away  on  a  long  journey, 
and  saw  all  things  with  changed  eyes.  "  I  feel  as  though 
I'd  died,"  he  thought  with  surprise,  "  and  was  dead  and 
buried." 

This  brought  back  to  his  mind  the  only  bitter  word  he 
had  spoken  throughout  the  endless  day.  Nathaniel  had 
said,  as  an  excuse  for  his  haste  (Jehiel  insisted  on  his 
leaving  that  night),  "  You  see,  mother,  it's  really  a  serv 
ice  to  Uncle  Jehiel,  since  he's  got  nobody  to  keep  house 
for  him."  He  had  added,  in  the  transparent  self-justifi 
cation  of  selfish  youth,  "  And  I'll  pay  it  back  to  him  every 
cent."  At  this  Jehiel  had  said  shortly,  "  By  the  time  you 
can  pay  it  back  what  I'll  need  most  will  be  a  tomb 
stone.  Git  a  big  one  so's  to  keep  me  down  there  quiet." 

But  now,  walking  home  under  the  frosty  stars,  he  felt 
very  quiet  already,  as  though  he  needed  no  weight  to  lie 
heavy  on  his  restless  heart.  It  did  not  seem  restless  now, 
but  very  still,  as  though  it  too  were  dead.  He  noticed 
that  the  air  was  milder,  and  as  he  crossed  the  bridge  be 
low  his  house  he  stopped  and  listened.  Yes,  the  fine  ear 
of  his  experience  caught  a  faint  grinding  sound.  By  to 
morrow  the  river  would  begin  to  break  up.  It  was  the 
end  of  winter.  He  surprised  himself  by  his  pleasure  in 
thinking  of  the  spring. 

Before  he  went  into  the  house  after  his  evening  chores 
were  done,  he  stopped  for  a  moment  and  looked  back  at 
the  cleft  in  the  mountain  wall  through  which  the  railroad 


AS  A  BIRD  OUT  OF  THE  SNARE  65 

left  the  valley.  He  had  been  looking  longingly  toward 
that  door  of  escape  all  his  life,  and  now  he  said  good- 
by  to  it.  "  Ah,  well,  'twan't  to  be,"  he  said,  with  an  ac 
cent  of  weary  finality;  but  then,  suddenly  out  of  the  chill 
which  oppressed  his  heart  there  sprang  a  last  searing 
blast  of  astonished  anguish.  It  was  as  if  he  realized  for 
the  first  time  all  that  had  befallen  him  since  the  morning. 
He  was  racked  by  a  horrified  desolation  that  made  his 
sturdy  old  body  stagger  as  if  under  an  unexpected  blow. 
As  he  reeled  he  flung  his  arm  about  the  pine-tree  and  so 
stood  for  a  time,  shaking  in  a  paroxysm  which  left  him 
breathless  when  it  passed. 

For  it  passed  as  suddenly  as  it  came.  He  lifted  his 
head  and  looked  again  at  the  great  cleft  in  the  moun 
tains,  with  new  eyes.  Somehow,  insensibly,  his  heart 
had  been  emptied  of  its  fiery  draught  by  more  than  mere 
exhaustion.  The  old  bitter  pain  was  gone,  but  there  was 
no  mere  void  in  its  place.  He  felt  the  sweet,  weak  light- 
headedness  of  a  man  in  his  first  lucid  period  after  a 
fever,  tears  stinging  his  eyelids  in  confused  thanksgiving 
for  an  unrecognized  respite  from  pain. 

He  looked  up  at  the  lofty  crown  of  the  pine-tree, 
through  which  shone  one  or  two  of  the  brightest  stars, 
and  felt  a  new  comradeship  with  it.  It  was  a  great  tree, 
he  thought,  and  they  had  grown  up  together.  He  laid  his 
hardened  palm  on  it,  and  fancied  that  he  caught  a  throb 
of  the  silent  vitality  under  the  bark.  How  many  kinds 
of  life  there  were!  Under  its  white  shroud,  how  all  the 
valley  lived.  The  tree  stretching  up  its  head  to  the  stars, 
the  river  preparing  to  throw  off  the  icy  armor  which  com 
pressed  its  heart— they  were  all  awakening  in  their  own 
way.  The  river  had  been  restless,  like  himself,  the  tree 


66  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

had  been  tranquil,  but  they  passed  together  through  the 
resurrection  into  quiet  life. 

When  he  went  into  the  house,  he  found  that  he  was 
almost  fainting  with  fatigue.  He  sat  down  by  the  desk, 
and  his  head  fell  forward  on  the  pile  of  pamphlets  he 
had  left  there.  For  the  first  time  in  his  life  he  thought 
of  them  without  a  sore  heart.  "  I  suppose  Natty'll  go  to 
every  one  of  them  places,"  he  murmured  as  he  dropped 
to  sleep. 

He  dreamed  strange,  troubled  dreams  that  melted 
away  before  he  could  seize  on  them,  and  finally  he 
thought  his  sister  stood  before  him  and  called.  The  im 
pression  was  so  vivid  that  he  started  up,  staring  at  the 
empty  room.  For  an  instant  he  still  thought  he  heard  a 
voice,  and  then  he  knew  it  was  the  old  clock  striking  the 
hour.  It  was  ten  o'clock. 

"  Natty's  just  a-crossin'  the  State  line/'  he  said  aloud. 

The  text-ornament  caught  his  eye.  Still  half  asleep, 
with  his  sister's  long- forgotten  voice  ringing  in  his  ears, 
he  remembered  vaguely  that  he  had  meant  to  bring  the 
second  text  to  light.  For  a  moment  he  hesitated,  and 
then,  "  Well,  it's  come  true  for  Natty,  anyhow,"  he 
thought. 

And  clumsily  using  his  heavy  jackknife,  he  began  to 
cut  the  tiny  stitches  which  had  so  long  hidden  from  his 
eyes  the  joyous  exultation  of  the  escaped  prisoner. 


THE   BEDQUILT 

OF  all  the  Elwell  family  Aunt  Mehetabel  was  certainly 
the  most  unimportant  member.  It  was  in  the  New  Eng 
land  days,  when  an  unmarried  woman  was  an  old  maid  at 
twenty,  at  forty  was  everyone's  servant,  and  at  sixty  had 
gone  through  so  much  discipline  that  she  could  need  no 
more  in  the  next  world.  Aunt  Mehetabel  was  sixty-eight. 

She  had  never  for  a  moment  known  the  pleasure  of  be 
ing  important  to  anyone.  Not  that  she  was  useless  in  her 
brother's  family;  she  was  expected,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
to  take  upon  herself  the  most  tedious  and  uninteresting 
part  of  the  household  labors.  On  Mondays  she  accepted 
as  her  share  the  washing  of  the  men's  shirts,  heavy  with 
sweat  and  stiff  with  dirt  from  the  fields  and  from  their 
own  hard-working  bodies.  Tuesdays  she  never  dreamed 
of  being  allowed  to  iron  anything  pretty  or  even  interest 
ing,  like  the  baby's  white  dresses  or  the  fancy  aprons  of 
her  young  lady  nieces.  She  stood  all  day  pressing  out  a 
tiresome  monotonous  succession  of  dish-cloths  and  towels 
and  sheets. 

In  preserving-time  she  was  allowed  to  have  none  of 
the  pleasant  responsibility  of  deciding  when  the  fruit 
had  cooked  long  enough,  nor  did  she  share  in  the  little 
excitement  of  pouring  the  sweet-smelling  stuff  into  the 
stone  jars.  She  sat  in  a  corner  with  the  children  and 
stoned  cherries  incessantly,  or  hulled  strawberries  until 
her  fingers  were  dyed  red  to  the  bone. 

67 


68  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

The  Elwells  were  not  consciously  unkind  to  their  aunt, 
they  were  even  in  a  vague  way  fond  of  her;  but  she  was 
so  utterly  insignificant  a  figure  in  their  lives  that  they  be 
stowed  no  thought  whatever  on  her.  Aunt  Mehetabel 
did  not  resent  this  treatment ;  she  took  it  quite  as  uncon 
sciously  as  they  gave  it.  It  was  to  be  expected  when  one 
was  an  old-maid  dependent  in  a  busy  family.  She  gath 
ered  what  crumbs  of  comfort  she  could  from  their  occa 
sional  careless  kindnesses  and  tried  to  hide  the  hurt  which 
even  yet  pierced  her  at  her  brother's  rough  joking.  In 
the  winter  when  they  all  sat  before  the  big  hearth, 
roasted  apples,  drank  mulled  cider,  and  teased  the  girls 
about  their  beaux  and  the  boys  about  their  sweethearts, 
she  shrank  into  a  dusky  corner  with  her  knitting,  happy 
if  the  evening  passed  without  her  brother  saying,  with 
a  crude  sarcasm,  "  Ask  your  Aunt  Mehetabel  about  the 
beaux  that  used  to  come  a-sparkin'  her!"  or,  "Me 
hetabel,  how  was't  when  you  was  in  love  with  Abel  Cum- 
mings."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  she  had  been  the  same  at 
twenty  as  at  sixty,  a  quiet,  mouse-like  little  creature,  too 
timid  and  shy  for  anyone  to  notice,  or  to  raise  her  eyes 
for  a  moment  and  wish  for  a  life  of  her  own. 

Her  sister-in-law,  a  big  hearty  housewife,  who  ruled 
indoors  with  as  autocratic  a  sway  as  did  her  husband  on 
the  farm,  was  rather  kind  in  an  absent,  offhand  way  to 
the  shrunken  little  old  woman,  and  it  was  through  her 
that  Mehetabel  was  able  to  enjoy  the  one  pleasure  of  her 
life.  Even  as  a  girl  she  had  been  clever  with  her  needle 
in  the  way  of  patching  bedquilts.  More  than  that  she 
could  never  learn  to  do.  The  garments  which  she  made 
for  herself  were  the  most  lamentable  affairs,  and  she  was 
humbly  grateful  for  any  help  in  the  bewildering  business 


THE  BEDQUILT  69 

of  putting  them  together.  But  in  patchwork  she  enjoyed 
a  tepid  importance.  She  could  really  do  that  as  well 
as  anyone  else.  During  years  of  devotion  to  this  one 
art  she  had  accumulated  a  considerable  store  of  quilt 
ing  patterns.  Sometimes  the  neighbors  would  send  over 
and  ask  "  Miss  Mehetabel  "  for  such  and  such  a  design. 
It  was  with  an  agreeable  flutter  at  being  able  to  help  some 
one  that  she  went  to  the  dresser,  in  her  bare  little  room 
under  the  eaves,  and  extracted  from  her  crowded  port 
folio  the  pattern  desired. 

She  never  knew  how  her  great  idea  came  to  her.  Some 
times  she  thought  she  must  have  dreamed  it,  sometimes 
she  even  wondered  reverently,  in  the  phraseology  of  the 
weekly  prayer-meeting,  if  it  had  not  been  "  sent  "  to  her. 
She  never  admitted  to  herself  that  she  could  have  thought 
of  it  without  other  help;  it  was  too  great,  too  ambitious, 
too  lofty  a  project  for  her  humble  mind  to  have  conceived. 
Even  when  she  finished  drawing  the  design  with  her  own 
fingers,  she  gazed  at  it  incredulously,  not  daring  to  be 
lieve  that  it  could  indeed  be  her  handiwork.  At  first  it 
seemed  to  her  only  like  a  lovely  but  quite  unreal  dream. 
She  did  not  think  of  putting  it  into  execution — so  elabo 
rate,  so  complicated,  so  beautifully  difficult  a  pattern 
could  be  only  for  the  angels  in  heaven  to  quilt.  But  so 
curiously  does  familiarity  accustom  us  even  to  very  won 
derful  things,  that  as  she  lived  with  this  astonishing  crea 
tion  of  her  mind,  the  longing  grew  stronger  and  stronger 
to  give  it  material  life  with  her  nimble  old  fingers. 

She  gasped  at  her  daring  when  this  idea  first  swept 
over  her  and  put  it  away  as  one  does  a  sinfully  selfish 
notion,  but  she  kept  coming  back  to  it  again  and  again. 
Finally  she  said  compromisingly  to  herself  that  she  would 


70  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

make  one  "  square,"  just  one  part  of  her  design,  to  see 
how  it  would  look.  Accustomed  to  the  most  complete 
dependence  on  her  brother  and  his  wife,  she  dared  not  do 
even  this  without  asking  Sophia's  permission.  With  a 
heart  full  of  hope  and  fear  thumping  furiously  against 
her  old  ribs,  she  approached  the  mistress  of  the  house  on 
churning-day,  knowing  with  the  innocent  guile  of  a  child 
that  the  country  woman  was  apt  to  be  in  a  good  temper 
while  working  over  the  fragrant  butter  in  the  cool  cellar. 

Sophia  listened  absently  to  her  sister-in-law's  halting, 
hesitating  petition.  "  Why,  yes,  Mehetabel,"  she  said, 
leaning  far  down  into  the  huge  churn  for  the  last  golden 
morsels — "  why,  yes,  start  another  quilt  if  you  want  to. 
I've  got  a  lot  of  pieces  from  the  spring  sewing  that  will 
work  in  real  good."  Mehetabel  tried  honestly  to  make 
her  see  that  this  would  be  no  common  quilt,  but  her 
limited  vocabulary  and  her  emotion  stood  between  her 
and  expression.  At  last  Sophia  said,  with  a  kindly  im 
patience  :  "  Oh,  there !  Don't  bother  me.  I  never  could 
keep  track  of  your  quiltin'  patterns,  anyhow.  I  don't 
care  what  pattern  you  go  by." 

With  this  overwhelmingly,  although  unconsciously,  gen 
erous  permission  Mehetabel  rushed  back  up  the  steep  attic 
stairs  to  her  room,  and  in  a  joyful  agitation  began  prepa 
rations  for  the  work  of  her  life.  It  was  even  better  than 
she  hoped.  By  some  heaven-sent  inspiration  she  had  in 
vented  a  pattern  beyond  which  no  patchwork  quilt 
could  go. 

She  had  but  little  time  from  her  incessant  round  of 
household  drudgery  for  this  new  and  absorbing  occupa 
tion,  and  she  did  not  dare  sit  up  late  at  night  lest  she 
burn  too  much  candle.  It  was  weeks  before  the  little 


THE  BEDQUILT  71 

square  began  to  take  on  a  finished  look,  to  show  the 
pattern.  Then  Mehetabel  was  in  a  fever  of  impatience  to 
bring  it  to  completion.  She  was  too  conscientious  to 
shirk  even  the  smallest  part  of  her  share  of  the  work 
of  the  house,  but  she  rushed  through  it  with  a  speed  which 
left  her  panting  as  she  climbed  to  the  little  room.  This 
seemed  like  a  radiant  spot  to  her  as  she  bent  over  the 
innumerable  scraps  of  cloth  which  already  in  her  imagina 
tion  ranged  themselves  in  the  infinitely  diverse  pattern 
of  her  masterpiece.  Finally  she  could  wait  no  longer, 
and  one  evening  ventured  to  bring  her  work  down  beside 
the  fire  where  the  family  sat,  hoping  that  some  good 
fortune  would  give  her  a  place  near  the  tallow  candles 
on  the  mantelpiece.  She  was  on  the  last  corner  of  the 
square,  and  her  needle  flew  in  and  out  with  inconceivable 
rapidity.  No  one  noticed  her,  a  fact  which  filled  her 
with  relief,  and  by  bedtime  she  had  but  a  few  more 
stitches  to  add. 

As  she  stood  tip  with  the  others,  the  square  fluttered 
out  of  her  trembling  old  hands  and  fell  on  the  table. 
Sophia  glanced  at  it  carelessly.  "  Is  that  the  new  quilt 
you're  beginning  on?  "  she  asked  with  a  yawn.  "  It  looks 
like  a  real  pretty  pattern.  Let's  see  it."  Up  to  that 
moment  Mehetabel  had  labored  in  the  purest  spirit  of 
disinterested  devotion  to  an  ideal,  but  as  Sophia  held 
her  work  toward  the  candle  to  examine  it,  and  exclaimed 
in  amazement  and  admiration,  she  felt  an  astonished 
joy  to  know  that  her  creation  would  stand  the  test  of 
publicity. 

"  Land  sakes !  "  ejaculated  her  sister-in-law,  looking 
at  the  many-colored  square.  '''  Why,  Mehetabel  El  well, 
where'd  you  git  that  pattern?" 


72  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

"  I  made  it  up,"  said  Mehetabel  quietly,  but  with  un 
utterable  pride. 

"  No !  "  exclaimed  Sophia  incredulously.  "  Did  you ! 
Why,  I  never  see  such  a  pattern  in  my  life.  Girls,  come 
here  and  see  what  your  Aunt  Mehetabel  is  doing." 

The  three  tall  daughters  turned  back  reluctantly  from 
the  stairs.  "  I  don't  seem  to  take  much  interest  in  patch 
work,"  said  one  listlessly. 

"  No,  nor  I  neither !  "  answered  Sophia ;  "  but  a  stone 
image  would  take  an  interest  in  this  pattern.  Honest, 
Mehetabel,  did  you  think  of  it  yourself?  And  how  under 
the  sun  and  stars  did  you  ever  git  your  courage  up  to 
start  in  a-making  it?  Land!  Look  at  all  those  tiny 
squinchy  little  seams !  Why  the  wrong  side  ain't  a  thing 
but  seams ! " 

The  girls  echoed  their  mother's  exclamations,  and  Mr. 
Elwell  himself  came  over  to  see  what  they  were  discuss 
ing.  "  Well,  I  declare !  "  he  said,  looking  at  his  sister 
with  eyes  more  approving  than  she  could  ever  remember. 
'''  That  beats  old  Mis'  Wightman's  quilt  that  got  the  blue 
ribbon  so  many  times  at  the  county  fair." 

Mehetabel's  heart  swelled  within  her,  and  tears  of  joy 
moistened  her  old  eyes  as  she  lay  that  night  in  her  narrow, 
hard  bed,  too  proud  and  excited  to  sleep.  The  next  day 
her  sister-in-law  amazed  her  by  taking  the  huge  pan  of 
potatoes  out  of  her  lap  and  setting  one  of  the  younger 
children  to  peeling  them.  "  Don't  you  want  to  go  on 
with  that  quiltin'  pattern?"  she  said;  "I'd  kind  o'  like 
to  see  how  you're  goin'  to  make  the  grape-vine  design 
come  out  on  the  corner." 

By  the  end  of  the  summer  the  family  interest  had 
risen  so  high  that  Mehetabel  was  given  a  little  stand  in 


THE  BEDQUILT  73 

the  sitting-room  where  she  could  keep  her  pieces,  and 
work  in  odd  minutes.  She  almost  wept  over  such  kind 
ness,  and  resolved  firmly  not  to  take  advantage  of  it  by 
neglecting  her  work,  which  she  performed  with  a  fierce 
thoroughness.  But  the  whole  atmosphere  of  her  world 
was  changed.  Things  had  a  meaning  now.  Through 
the  longest  task  of  washing  milk-pans  there  rose  the  rain 
bow  of  promise  of  her  variegated  work.  She  took  her 
place  by  the  little  table  and  put  the  thimble  on  her  knotted, 
hard  finger  with  the  solemnity  of  a  priestess  performing 
a  sacred  rite. 

She  was  even  able  to  bear  with  some  degree  of  dignity 
the  extreme  honor  of  having  the  minister  and  the  min 
ister's  wife  comment  admiringly  on  her  great  project. 
The  family  felt  quite  proud  of  Aunt  Mehetabel  as  Minis 
ter  Bowman  had  said  it  was  work  as  fine  as  any  he  had 
ever  seen,  "  and  he  didn't  know  but  finer !  "  The  remark 
was  repeated  verbatim  to  the  neighbors  in  the  following 
weeks  when  they  dropped  in  and  examined  in  a  perverse 
silence  some  astonishingly  difficult  tour  de  force  which 
Mehetabel  had  just  finished. 

The  family  especially  plumed  themselves  on  the  slow 
progress  of  the  quilt.  "  Mehetabel  has  been  to  work 
on  that  corner  for  six  weeks,  come  Tuesday,  and  she 
ain't  half  done  yet,"  they  explained  to  visitors.  They 
fell  out  of  the  way  of  always  expecting  her  to  be  the 
one  to  run  on  errands,  even  for  the  children.  "  Don't 
bother  your  Aunt  Mehetabel,"  Sophia  would  call. 
"  Can't  you  see  she's  got  to  a  ticklish  place  on  the  quilt  ?  " 

The  old  woman  sat  up  straighter  and  looked  the  world 
in  the  face.  She  was  a  part  of  it  at  last.  She  joined  in 
the  conversation  and  her  remarks  were  listened  to.  The 


74  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

• 

children  were  even  told  to  mind  her  when  she  asked  them 
to  do  some  service  for  her,  although  this  she  did  but 
seldom,  the  habit  of  self-effacement  being  too  strong. 

One  day  some  strangers  from  the  next  town  drove 
up  and  asked  if  they  could  inspect  the  wonderful  quilt 
which  they  had  heard  of,  even  down  in  their  end  of  the 
valley.  After  that  such  visitations  were  not  uncommon, 
making  the  Elwells'  house  a  notable  object.  Mehetabel's 
quilt  came  to  be  one  of  the  town  sights,  and  no  one  was 
allowed  to  leave  the  town  without  having  paid  tribute 
to  its  worth.  The  Elwells  saw  to  it  that  their  aunt  was 
better  dressed  than  she  had  ever  been  before,  and  one 
of  the  girls  made  her  a  pretty  little  cap  to  wear  on  her 
thin  white  hair. 

A  year  went  by  and  a  quarter  of  the  quilt  was  finished; 
a  second  year  passed  and  half  was  done.  The  third  year 
Mehetabel  had  pneumonia  and  lay  ill  for  weeks  and 
weeks,  overcome  with  terror  lest  she  die  before  her  work 
was  completed.  A  fourth  year  and  one  could  really  see 
the  grandeur  of  the  whole  design;  and  in  September  of 
the  fifth  year,  the  entire  family  watching  her  with  eager 
and  admiring  eyes,  Mehetabel  quilted  the  last  stitches  in 
her  creation.  The  girls  held  it  up  by  the  four  corners, 
and  they  all  looked  at  it  in  a  solemn  silence.  Then  Mr. 
Elwell  smote  one  horny  hand  within  the  other  and  ex 
claimed  :  "  By  ginger !  That's  goin'  to  the  county  fair !  " 
Mehetabel  blushed  a  deep  red  at  this.  It  was  a  thought 
which  had  occurred  to  her  in  a  bold  moment,  but  she 
had  not  dared  to  entertain  it.  The  family  acclaimed  the 
idea,  and  one  of  the  boys  was  forthwith  dispatched  to 
the  house  of  the  neighbor  who  was  chairman  of  the  com 
mittee  for  their  village.  He  returned  with  radiant  face. 


THE  BEDQUILT  75 

"  Of  course  he'll  take  it.  Like's  not  it  may  git  a  prize, 
so  he  says;  but  he's  got  to  have  it  right  off,  because 
all  the  things  are  goin'  to-morrow  morning." 

Even  in  her  swelling  pride  Mehetabel  felt  a  pang  of 
separation  as  the  bulky  package  was  carried  out  of  the 
house.  As  the  days  went  on  she  felt  absolutely  lost  with 
out  her  work.  For  years  it  had  been  her  one  preoccupa 
tion,  and  she  could  not  bear  even  to  look  at  the  little 
stand,  now  quite  bare  of  the  litter  of  scraps  which  had 
lain  on  it  so  long.  One  of  the  neighbors,  who  took  the 
long  journey  to  the  fair,  reported  that  the  quilt  was  hung 
in  a  place  of  honor  in  a  glass  case  in  "  Agricultural  Hall." 
But  that  meant  little  to  Mehetabel's  utter  ignorance  of 
all  that  lay  outside  of  her  brother's  home.  The  family 
noticed  the  old  woman's  depression,  and  one  day  Sophia 
said  kindly,  "  You  feel  sort  o'  lost  without  the  quilt,  don't 
you,  Mehetabel?" 

"They  took  it  away  so  quick!"  she  said  wistfully; 
"  I  hadn't  hardly  had  one  real  good  look  at  it  myself." 

Mr.  Elwell  made  no  comment,  but  a  day  or  two  later 
he  asked  his  sister  how  early  she  could  get  up  in  the 
morning. 

"  I  dun'no'.    Why  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Well,  Thomas  Ralston  has  got  to  drive  clear  to  West 
Oldton  to  see  a  lawyer  there,  and  that  is  four  miles  be 
yond  the  fair.  He  says  if  you  can  git  up  so's  to  leave 
here  at  four  in  the  morning  he'll  drive  you  over  to  the 
fair,  leave  you  there  for  the  day,  and  bring  you  back 
again  at  night." 

Mehetabel  looked  at  him  with  incredulity.  It  was  as 
though  someone  had  offered  her  a  ride  in  a  golden  chariot 
up  to  the  gates  of  heaven.  "  Why,  you  can't  mean  it!  " 


76  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

she  cried,  paling  with  the  intensity  of  her  emotion.  Her 
brother  laughed  a  little  uneasily.  Even  to  his  careless 
indifference  this  joy  was  a  revelation  of  the  narrowness 
of  her  life  in  his  home.  "  Oh,  'tain't  so  much  to  go  to 
the  fair.  Yes,  I  mean  it.  Go  git  your  things  ready,  for 
he  wants  to  start  to-morrow  morning." 

All  that  night  a  trembling,  excited  old  woman  lay 
and  stared  at  the  rafters.  She,  who  had  never  been  more 
than  six  miles  from  home  in  her  life,  was  going  to  drive 
thirty  miles  away — it  was  like  going  to  another  world. 
She  who  had  never  seen  anything  more  exciting  than  a 
church  supper  was  to  see  the  county  fair.  To  Mehetabel 
it  was  like  making  the  tour  of  the  world.  She  had  never 
dreamed  of  doing  it.  She  could  not  at  all  imagine  what  it 
would  be  like. 

Nor  did  the  exhortations  of  the  family,  as  they  bade 
good-by  to  her,  throw  any  light  on  her  confusion.  They 
had  all  been  at  least  once  to  the  scene  of  gayety  she  was 
to  visit,  and  as  she  tried  to  eat  her  breakfast  they  called 
out  conflicting  advice  to  her  till  her  head  whirled.  Sophia 
told  her  to  be  sure  and  see  the  display  of  preserves.  Her 
brother  said  not  to  miss  inspecting  the  stock,  her  nieces 
said  the  fancywork  was  the  only  thing  worth  looking  at, 
and  her  nephews  said  she  must  bring  them  home  an  ac 
count  of  the  races.  The  buggy  drove  up  to  the  door,  she 
was  helped  in,  and  her  wraps  tucked  about  her.  They  all 
stood  together  and  waved  good-by  to  her  as  she  drove 
out  of  the  yard.  She  waved  back,  but  she  scarcely  saw 
them.  On  her  return  home  that  evening  she  was  very 
pale,  and  so  tired  and  stiff  that  her  brother  had  to  lift 
her  out  bodily,  but  her  lips  were  set  in  a  blissful  smile. 
They  crowded  around  her  with  thronging  questions,  un- 


THE  BEDQUILT  77 

til  Sophia  pushed  them  all  aside,  telling  them  Aunt  Me- 
hetabel  was  too  tired  to  speak  until  she  had  had  her 
supper.  This  was  eaten  in  an  enforced  silence  on  the 
part  of  the  children,  and  then  the  old  woman  was  helped 
into  an  easy-chair  before  the  fire.  They  gathered  about 
her,  eager  for  news  of  the  great  world,  and  Sophia  said, 
"  Now,  come,  Mehetabel,  tell  us  all  about  it ! " 

Mehetabel  drew  a  long  breath.  "  It  was  just  perfect !  " 
she  said;  "  finer  even  than  I  thought.  They've  got  it 
hanging  up  in  the  very  middle  of  a  sort  o'  closet  made  of 
glass,  and  one  of  the  lower  corners  is  ripped  and  turned 
back  so's  to  show  the  seams  on  the  wrong  side." 
"  What  ?  "  asked  Sophia,  a  little  blankly. 
"Why,  the  quilt!"  said  Mehetabel  in  surprise. 
"  There  are  a  whole  lot  of  other  ones  in  that  room,  but 
not  one  that  can  hold  a  candle  to  it,  if  I  do  say  it  who 
shouldn't.  I  heard  lots  of  people  say  the  same  thing. 
You  ought  to  have  heard  what  the  women  said  about  that 
corner,  Sophia.  They  said— well,  I'd  be  ashamed  to  tell 
you  what  they  said.  I  declare  if  I  wouldn't !  " 

Mr.  Elwell  asked,  "  What  did  you  think  of  that  big 
ox  we've  heard  so  much  about?  " 

"  I  didn't  look  at  the  stock,"  returned  his  sister  indif 
ferently.  "  That  set  of  pieces  you  gave  me,  Maria,  from 
your  red  waist,  come  out  just  lovely!  "  she  assured  one 
of  her  nieces.  "  I  heard  one  woman  say  you  could  'most 
smell  the  red  silk  roses." 

"Did  any  of  the  horses  in  our  town  race?"  asked 
young  Thomas. 

"  I  didn't  see  the  races." 

"  How  about  the  preserves?  "  asked  Sophia. 

"  I  didn't  see  the  preserves,"  said  Mehetabel  calmly. 


78  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

'  You  see,  I  went  right  to  the  room  where  the  quilt  was, 
and  then  I  didn't  want  to  leave  it.  It  had  been  so  long 
since  I'd  seen  it.  I  had  to  look  at  it  first  real  good  myself, 
and  then  I  looked  at  the  others  to  see  if  there  was  any 
that  could  come  up  to  it.  And  then  the  people  begun 
comin'  in  and  I  got  so  interested  in  hearin'  what  they  had 
to  say  I  couldn't  think  of  goin'  anywheres  else.  I  ate 
my  lunch  right  there  too,  and  I'm  as  glad  as  can  be  I 
did,  too;  for  what  do  you  think?  " — she  gazed  about  her 
with  kindling  eyes — "  while  I  stood  there  with  a  sand 
wich  in  one  hand  didn't  the  head  of  the  hull  concern 
come  in  and  open  the  glass  door  and  pin  '  First  Prize ' 
right  in  the  middle  of  the  quilt !  " 

There  was  a  stir  of  congratulation  and  proud  exclama 
tion.  Then  Sophia  returned  again  to  the  attack. 
"  Didn't  you  go  to  see  anything  else?  "  she  queried. 

"  Why,  no,"  said  Mehetabel.  "  Only  the  quilt.  Why 
should  I?" 

She  fell  into  a  reverie  where  she  saw  again  the  glori 
ous  creation  of  her  hand  and  brain  hanging  before  all 
the  world  with  the  mark  of  highest  approval  on  it.  She 
longed  to  make  her  listeners  see  the  splendid  vision  with 
her.  She  struggled  for  words ;  she  reached  blindly  after 

unknown  superlatives.     "  I  tell  you  it  looked  like 

she  said,  and  paused,  hesitating.  Vague  recollections 
of  hymn-book  phraseology  came  into  her  mind,  the  only 
form  of  literary  expression  she  knew;  but  they  were 
dismissed  as  being  sacrilegious,  and  also  not  sufficiently 
forcible.  Finally,  "  I  tell  you  it  looked  real  well!  "  she 
assured  them,  and  sat  staring  into  the  fire,  on  her  tired 
old  face  the  supreme  content  of  an  artist  who  has  realized 
his  ideal. 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER 


THE  news  of  Professor  Gridley's  death  filled  Middle- 
town  College  with  consternation.  Its  one  claim  to  dis 
tinction  was  gone,  for  in  spite  of  the  excessive  quiet  of 
his  private  life,  he  had  always  cast  about  the  obscure 
little  college  the  shimmering  aura  of  greatness.  There 
had  been  no  fondness  possible  for  the  austere  old  thinker, 
but  Middletown  village,  as  well  as  the  college,  had  been 
touched  by  his  fidelity  to  the  very  moderate  attractions  of 
his  birthplace.  When,  as  often  happened,  some  famous 
figure  was  seen  on  the  streets,  people  used  to  say  first, 
"  Here  to  see  old  Grid,  I  suppose,"  and  then,  "  Funny 
how  he  sticks  here.  They  say  he  was  offered  seven  thou 
sand  at  the  University  of  California."  In  the  absence 
of  any  known  motive  for  this  steadfastness,  the  village 
legend-making  instinct  had  evolved  a  theory  that  he  did 
not  wish  to  move  away  from  a  State  of  which  his  father 
had  been  Governor,  and  where  the  name  of  Gridley  was 
like  a  patent  of  nobility. 

And  now  he  was  gone,  the  last  of  the  race.  His  dis 
appearance  caused  the  usual  amount  of  reminiscent  talk 
among  his  neighbors.  The  older  people  recalled  the  by 
gone  scandals  connected  with  his  notorious  and  popular 
father  and  intimated  with  knowing  nods  that  there  were 
plenty  of  other  descendants  of  the  old  Governor  who 
were  not  entitled  legally  to  bear  the  name;  but  the 

79 


8o  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

younger  ones,  who  had  known  only  the  severely  ascetic 
life  and  cold  personality  of  the  celebrated  scholar,  found 
it  difficult  to  connect  him  with  such  a  father.  In  their 
talk  they  brought  to  mind  the  man  himself,  his  queer 
shabby  clothes,  his  big  stooping  frame,  his  sad  black  eyes, 
absent  almost  to  vacancy  as  though  always  fixed  on 
high  and  distant  thoughts ;  and  those  who  had  lived  near 
him  told  laughing  stories  about  the  crude  and  countrified 
simplicity  of  his  old  aunt's  housekeeping — it  was  said 
that  the  president  of  Harvard  had  been  invited  to  join 
them  once  in  a  Sunday  evening  meal  of  crackers  and 
milk — but  the  general  tenor  of  feeling  was,  as  it  had 
been  during  his  life,  of  pride  in  his  great  fame  and  in  the 
celebrated  people  who  had  come  to  see  him. 

This  pride  warmed  into  something  like  affection  when, 
the  day  after  his  death,  came  the  tidings  that  he  had  be 
queathed  to  his  college  the  Gino  Sprague  Falleres  portrait 
of  himself.  Of  course,  at  that  time,  no  one  in  Middle- 
town  had  seen  the  picture,  for  the  philosopher's  sudden 
death  had  occurred,  very  dramatically,  actually  during 
the  last  sitting.  He  had,  in  fact,  had  barely  one  glimpse 
of  it  himself,  as,  according  to  Falleres's  invariable  rule, 
no  one,  not  even  the  subject  of  the  portrait,  had  been 
allowed  to  examine  an  unfinished  piece  of  work.  But, 
though  Middletown  had  no  first-hand  knowledge  of  the 
picture,  there  could  be  no  doubt  about  the  value  of  the 
canvas.  As  soon  as  it  was  put  on  exhibition  in  London, 
from  every  art-critic  in  the  three  nations  who  claimed 
Falleres  for  their  own  there  rose  a  wail  that  this  master 
piece  was  to  be  buried  in  an  unknown  college  in  an 
obscure  village  in  barbarous  America.  It  was  confidently 
stated  that  it  would  be  saved  from  such  an  unfitting 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER  81 

resting-place  by  strong  action  on  the  part  of  an  Interna 
tional  Committee  of  Artists;  but  Middletown,  though 
startled  by  its  own  good  fortune,  clung  with  Yankee 
tenacity  to  its  rights.  Raphael  Collin,  of  Paris,  comment 
ing  on  this  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  cried  out 
whimsically  upon  the  woes  of  an  art-critic's  life,  "  as  if 
there  were  not  already  enough  wearisome  pilgrimages 
necessary  to  remote  and  uncomfortable  places  with  jaw- 
breaking  names,  which  must  nevertheless  be  visited  for 
the  sake  of  a  single  picture !  "  And  a  burlesque  resolu 
tion  to  carry  off  the  picture  by  force  was  adopted  at  the 
dinner  in  London  given  in  honor  of  Falleres  the  evening 
before  he  set  off  for  America  to  attend  the  dedicatory 
exercises  with  which  Middletown  planned  to  install  its 
new  treasure. 

For  the  little  rustic  college  rose  to  its  one  great  occa 
sion.  Bold  in  their  confidence  in  their  dead  colleague's 
fame,  the  college  authorities  sent  out  invitations  to  all  the 
great  ones  of  the  country.  Those  to  whom  Gridley  was 
no  more  than  a  name  on  volumes  one  never  read  came 
because  the  portrait  was  by  Falleres,  and  those  who  had 
no  interest  in  the  world  of  art  came  to  honor  the  moralist 
whose  noble  clear-thinking  had  simplified  the  intimate 
problems  of  modern  life.  There  was  the  usual  residuum 
of  those  who  came  because  the  others  did,  and,  also  as 
usual,  they  were  among  the  most  brilliant  figures  in  the 
procession  which  filed  along,  one  October  morning,  under 
the  old  maples  of  Middletown  campus. 

It  was  a  notable  celebration.  A  bishop  opened  the 
exercises  with  prayer,  a  United  States  senator  delivered 
the  eulogy  of  the  dead  philosopher,  the  veil  uncovering 
the  portrait  was  drawn  away  by  the  mayor  of  one  of 


82  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

America's  largest  cities,  himself  an  ardent  Gridleyite, 
and  among  those  who  spoke  afterward  were  the  presi 
dents  of  three  great  universities.  The  professor's  family 
was  represented  but  scantily.  He  had  had  one  brother, 
who  had  disappeared  many  years  ago  under  a  black 
cloud  of  ill  report,  and  one  sister  who  had  married  and 
gone  West  to  live.  Her  two  sons,  middle-aged  mer 
chants  from  Ohio,  gave  the  only  personal  note  to  the 
occasion  by  their  somewhat  tongue-tied  and  embarrassed 
presence,  for  Gridley's  aunt  was  too  aged  and  infirm  to 
walk  with  the  procession  from  the  Gymnasium,  where  it 
formed,  to  the  Library  building,  where  the  portrait  was 
installed. 

After  the  inevitable  photographers  had  made  their 
records  of  the  memorable  gathering,  the  procession  began 
to  wind  its  many-colored  way  back  to  the  Assembly 
Hall,  where  it  was  to  lunch.  Everyone  was  feeling  re 
lieved  that  the  unveiling  had  gone  off  so  smoothly,  and 
cheerful  at  the  prospect  of  food.  The  undergraduates 
began  lustily  to  shout  their  college  song,  which  was  caught 
up  by  the  holiday  mood  of  the  older  ones.  This  cheerful 
tumult  gradually  died  away  in  the  distance,  leaving  the 
room  of  the  portrait  deserted  in  an  echoing  silence.  A 
janitor  began  to  remove  the  rows  of  folding  chairs.  The 
celebration  was  over. 

Into  the  empty  room  there  now  limped  forward  a  small, 
shabby  old  woman  with  a  crutch.  "  I'm  his  aunt,  that 
lived  with  him,"  she  explained  apologetically,  "  and  I 
want  to  see  the  picture." 

She  advanced,  peering  nearsightedly  at  the  canvas.  The 
janitor  continued  stacking  up  chairs  until  he  was  stopped 
by  a  cry  from  the  newcomer.  She  was  a  great  deal  paler 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER  83 

than  when  she  came  in.  She  was  staring  hard  at  the 
portrait  and  now  beckoned  him  wildly  to  do  the  same. 
"  Look  at  it !  Look  at  it !  " 

Surprised,  he  followed  the  direction  of  her  shaking 
hand.  "  Sure,  it's  Professor  Grid  to  the  life ! "  he  said 
admiringly. 

"  Look  at  it !  Look  at  it !  "  She  seemed  not  to  be 
able  to  find  any  other  words. 

After  a  prolonged  scrutiny  he  turned  to  her  with  a 
puzzled  line  between  his  eyebrows.  "  Since  you've  spoken 
of  it,  ma'am,  I  will  say  that  there's  a  something  about  the 
expression  of  the  eyes  .  .  .  and  mouth,  maybe  .  .  . 
that  ain't  just  the  professor.  He  was  more  absent-like. 
It  reminds  me  of  somebody  else  ...  of  some  face  I've 
seen  ..." 

She  hung  on  his  answer,  her  mild,  timid  old  face 
drawn  like  a  mask  of  tragedy.  "Who?  Who?"  she 
prompted  him. 

For  a  time  he  could  not  remember,  staring  at  the 
new  portrait  and  scratching  his  head.  Then  it  came 
to  him  suddenly :  "  Why,  sure,  I  ought  to  ha'  known 
without  thinkin',  seeing  the  other  picture  as  often  as 
every  time  I've  swep'  out  the  president's  office.  And 
Professor  Grid  always  looked  like  him  some,  anyhow." 

The  old  woman  leaned  against  the  wall,  her  crutch 
trembling  in  her  hand.  Her  eyes  questioned  him  mutely. 

"  Why,  ma'am,  who  but  his  own  father,  to  be  sure 
...  the  old  Governor." 

II 

While  they  had  been  duly  sensible  of  the  luster  reflected 
upon  them  by  the  celebration  in  honor  of  their  distin- 


84  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

guished  uncle,  Professor  Gridley's  two  nephews  could 
scarcely  have  said  truthfully  that  they  enjoyed  the  occa 
sion.  As  one  of  them  did  say  to  the  other,  the  whole 
show  was  rather  out  of  their  line.  Their  line  was  whole 
sale  hardware  and,  being  eager  to  return  to  it,  it  was 
with  a  distinct  feeling  of  relief  that  they  waited  for  the 
train  at  the  station.  They  were  therefore  as  much  dis 
pleased  as  surprised  by  the  sudden  appearance  to  them 
of  their  great-aunt,  very  haggard,  her  usual  extreme 
timidity  swept  away  by  overmastering  emotion.  She 
clutched  at  the  two  merchants  with  a  great  sob  of  relief : 
"  Stephen !  Eli !  Come  back  to  the  house,"  she  cried, 
and  before  they  could  stop  her  was  hobbling  away.  They 
hurried  after  her,  divided  between  the  fear  of  losing 
their  train  and  the  hope  that  some  inheritance  from  their 
uncle  had  been  found.  They  were  not  mercenary  men, 
but  they  felt  a  not  unnatural  disappointment  that  Pro 
fessor  Gridley  had  left  not  a  penny,  not  even  to  his  aunt, 
his  one  intimate. 

They  overtook  her,  scuttling  along  like  some  fright 
ened  and  wounded  little  animal.  "  What's  the  matter, 
Aunt  Amelia?"  they  asked  shortly.  "  We've  got  to 
catch  this  train/' 

She  faced  them.  "  You  can't  go  now.  You've  got 
to  make  them  take  that  picture  away." 

"  Away!  "    Their  blankness  was  stupefaction. 

She  raged  at  them,  the  timid,  harmless  little  thing, 
like  a  creature  distraught.  "  Didn't  you  see  it  ?  Didn't 
you  see  it?  " 

Stephen  answered :  "  Well,  no,  not  to  have  a  good 
square  look  at  it.  The  man  in  front  of  me  kept  getting 
in  the  way." 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER  85 

Eli  admitted:  "If  you  mean  you  don't  see  anything 
in  it  to  make  all  this  hurrah  about,  I'm  with  you.  It 
don't  look  half  finished.  I  don't  like  that  slap-dash 
style." 

She  was  in  a  frenzy  at  their  denseness.  "  Who  did 
it  look  like  ?  "  she  challenged  them. 

"  Why,  like  Uncle  Grid,  of  course.     Who  else?  " 

"  Yes,  yes,"  she  cried;  "  who  else?    Who  else?  " 

They  looked  at  each  other,  afraid  that  she  was  crazed, 
and  spoke  more  gently :  "  Why,  I  don't  know,  I'm  sure, 
who  else.  Like  Grandfather  Gridley,  of  course;  but  then 
Uncle  Grid  always  did  look  like  his  father." 

At  this  she  quite  definitely  put  it  out  of  their  power  to 
leave  her  by  fainting  away. 

They  carried  her  home  and  laid  her  on  her  own  bed, 
where  one  of  them  stayed  to  attend  her  while  the  other 
went  back  to  rescue  their  deserted  baggage.  As  the 
door  closed  behind  him  the  old  woman  came  to  herself. 
"  Oh,  Stephen,"  she  moaned,  "  I  wish  it  had  killed 
me,  the  way  it  did  your  uncle." 

"  What  is  the  matter?  "  asked  her  great-nephew  won- 
deringly.  "  What  do  you  think  killed  him  ?  " 

"  That  awful,  awful  picture!  I  know  it  now  as  plain 
as  if  I'd  been  there.  He  hadn't  seen  it  all  the  time  he 
was  sitting  for  it,  though  he'd  already  put  in  his  will 
that  he  wanted  the  college  to  have  it,  and  when  he  did  see 

it "  she  turned  on  the  merchant  with  a  sudden 

fury :  "  How  dare  you  say  those  are  your  uncle's 
eyes!" 

He  put  his  hand  soothingly  on  hers.  "  Now,  now, 
Aunt  'Melia,  maybe  the  expression  isn't  just  right,  but 
the  color  is  fine  .  .  .  just  that  jet-black  his  were  .  .  . 


86  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

and  the  artist  has  got  in  exact  that  funny  stiff  way  uncle's 
hair  stood  up  over  his  forehead." 

The  old  woman  fixed  outraged  eyes  upon  him. 
"  Color !  "  she  said.  "  And  hair !  Oh,  Lord,  help  me !  " 

She  sat  up  on  the  bed,  clutching  her  nephew's  hand, 
and  began  to  talk  rapidly.  When,  a  half-hour  later,  the 
other  brother  returned,  neither  of  them  heard  him  enter 
the  house.  It  was  only  when  he  called  at  the  foot  of  the 
stairs  that  they  both  started  and  Stephen  ran  down  to 
join  him. 

"You'll  see  the  president  .  .  .  you'll  fix  it?"  the 
old  woman  cried  after  him. 

"  I'll  see,  Aunt  'Melia,"  he  answered  pacifyingly,  as 
he  drew  his  brother  out  of  doors.  He  looked  quite  pale 
and  moved,  and  drew  a  long  breath  before  he  could  be 
gin.  "  Aunt  Amelia's  been  telling  me  a  lot  of  things 
I  never  knew,  Eli.  It  seems  that  .  .  .  say,  did  you  ever 
hear  that  Grandfather  Gridley,  the  Governor,  was  such 
a  bad  lot?" 

"  Why,  mother  never  said  much  about  her  father  one 
way  or  the  other,  but  I  always  sort  of  guessed  he  wasn't 
all  he  might  have  been  from  her  never  bringing  us  on  to 
visit  here  until  after  he  died.  She  used  to  look  queer, 
too,  when  folks  congratulated  her  on  having  such  a 
famous  man  for  father.  All  the  big  politicians  of  his  day 
thought  a  lot  of  him.  He  was  as  smart  as  chain-light 
ning!" 

"  He  was  a  disreputable  old  scalawag !  "  cried  his  other 
grandson.  "  Some  of  the  things  Aunt  Amelia  has  been 
telling  me  make  me  never  want  to  come  back  to  this  part 
of  the  country  again.  Do  you  know  why  Uncle  Grid 
lived  so  poor  and  scrimped  and  yet  left  no  money  ?  He'd 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER  87 

been  taking  care  of  a  whole  family  grandfather  had  be 
side  ours;  and  paying  back  some  people  grandfather 
did  out  of  a  lot  of  money  on  a  timber  deal  fifty 
years  ago;  and  making  it  up  to  a  little  village  in 
the  backwoods  that  grandfather  persuaded  to  bond 
itself  for  a  railroad  that  he  knew  wouldn't  go 
near  it." 

The  two  men  stared  at  each  other  an  instant,  review 
ing  in  a  new  light  the  life  that  had  just  closed.  "  That's 
why  he  never  married,"  said  Eli  finally. 

"  No,  that's  what  I  said,  but  Aunt  Amelia  just  went 
wild  when  I  did.  She  said  .  .  .  gee !  "  he  passed  his 
hand  over  his  eyes  with  a  gesture  of  mental  confusion. 
"  Ain't  it  strange  what  can  go  on  under  your  eyes  and 
you  never  know  it?  Why,  she  says  Uncle  Grid  was  just 
like  his  father." 

The  words  were  not  out  of  his  mouth  before  the  other's 
face  of  horror  made  him  aware  of  his  mistake.  "No! 
No!  Not  that!  Heavens,  no!  I  mean  .  .  .  made  like 
him  .  .  .  wanted  to  be  that  kind,  'specially  drink  ..." 
His  tongue,  unused  to  phrasing  abstractions,  stumbled 
and  tripped  in  his  haste  to  correct  the  other's  impression. 
'  You  know  how  much  Uncle  Grid  used  to  look  like 
grandfather  ...  the  same  black  hair  and  broad  face  and 
thick  red  lips  and  a  kind  of  knob  on  the  end  of  his  nose? 
Well,  it  seems  he  had  his  father's  insides,  too  .  .  .  but  his 
mother's  conscience!  I  guess,  from  what  Aunt  Amelia 
says,  that  the  combination  made  life  about  as  near  Tophet 
for  him  .  .  .  !  She's  the  only  one  to  know  anything 
about  it,  because  she's  lived  with  him  always,  you  know, 
took  him  when  grandmother  died  and  he  was  a  child. 
She  says  when  he  was  younger  he  was  like  a  man  fighting 


88  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

a  wild  beast  ...  he  didn't  dare  let  up  or  rest.  Some 
days  he  wouldn't  stop  working  at  his  desk  all  day  long, 
not  even  to  eat,  and  then  he'd  grab  up  a  piece  of  bread  and 
go  off  for  a  long  tearing  tramp  that'd  last  'most  all  night. 
You  know  what  a  tremendous  physique  all  the  Gridley 
men  have  had.  Well,  Uncle  Grid  turned  into  work  all 
the  energy  the  rest  of  them  spent  in  deviltry.  Aunt 
Amelia  said  he'd  go  on  like  that  day  after  day  for  a 
month,  and  then  he'd  bring  out  one  of  those  essays  folks 
are  so  crazy  about.  She  said  she  never  could  bear  to 
look  at  his  books  .  .  .  seemed  to  her  they  were  written 
in  his  blood.  She  told  him  so  once  and  he  said  it  was 
the  only  thing  to  do  with  blood  like  his." 

He  was  silent,  while  his  listener  made  a  clucking 
noise  of  astonishment.  "  My !  My !  I'd  have  said  that 
there  never  was  anybody  more  different  from  grand 
father  than  uncle.  Why,  as  he  got  on  in  years  he  didn't 
even  look  like  him  any  more." 

This  reference  gave  Stephen  a  start.  "  Oh,  yes,  that's 
what  all  this  came  out  for.  Aunt  Amelia  is  just  wild 
about  this  portrait.  It's  just  a  notion  of  hers,  of  course, 
but  after  what  she  told  me  I  could  see,  easy,  how  the 
idea  would  come  to  her.  It  looks  this  way,  she  says, 
as  though  Uncle  Grid  inherited  his  father's  physical 
make-up  complete,  and  spent  all  his  life  fighting  it 
.  .  .  and  won  out!  And  here's  this  picture  making 
him  look  the  way  he  would  if  he'd  been  the  worst  old 
.  .  .  as  if  he'd  been  like  the  Governor.  She  says  she 
feels  as  though  she  was  the  only  one  to  defend  uncle  .  .  . 
as  if  it  could  make  any  difference  to  him!  I  guess 
the  poor  old  lady  is  a  little  touched.  Likely  it's  harder 
for  her,  losing  uncle,  than  we  realized.  She  just  about 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER  89 

worshiped  him.  Queer  business,  anyhow,  wasn't  it? 
Who'd  ha'  thought  he  was  like  that?" 

He  had  talked  his  unwonted  emotion  quite  out,  and 
now  looked  at  his  brother  with  his  usual  matter-of-fact 
eye.  "  Did  you  tell  the  station  agent  to  hold  the  trunk?  " 

The  other,  who  was  the  younger,  looked  a  little 
abashed.  "Well,  no;  I  found  the  train  was  so  late  I 
thought  maybe  we  could  .  .  .  you  know  there's  that 
business  to-morrow  .  .  .  ! " 

His  senior  relieved  him  of  embarrassment.  '  That's 
a  good  idea.  Sure  we  can.  There's  nothing  we  could 
do  if  we  stayed.  It's  just  a  notion  of  Aunt  'Melia's, 
anyhow.  I  agree  with  her  that  it  don't  look  so  awfully 
like  Uncle  Grid,  but,  then,  oil-portraits  are  never  any 
good.  Give  me  a  photograph !  " 

"  It's  out  of  our  line,  anyhow,"  agreed  the  younger, 
looking  at  his  watch. 

Ill 

The  president  of  Middletown  College  had  been  as  much 
relieved  as  pleased  by  the  success  of  the  rather  preten 
tious  celebration  he  had  planned.  His  annoyance  was 
correspondingly  keen  at  the  disturbing  appearance,  in 
the  afternoon  reception  before  the  new  portrait,  of  the 
late  professor's  aunt,  "  an  entirely  insignificant  old  coun 
try  woman,"  he  hastily  assured  M.  Falleres  after  she 
had  been  half  forced,  half  persuaded  to  retire,  "  whose 
criticisms  were  as  negligible  as  her  personality." 

The  tall,  Jove-like  artist  concealed  a  smile  by  stroking 
his  great  brown  beard.  When  it  came  to  insignificant 
country  people,  he  told  himself,  it  was  hard  to  draw  lines 


90  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

in  his  present  company.     He  was  wondering  whether  he 
might  not  escape  by  an  earlier  train. 

To  the  president's  remark  he  answered  that  no  portrait- 
painter  escaped  unreasonable  relatives  of  his  sitters.  "  It 
is  an  axiom  with  our  guild,"  he  went  on,  not,  perhaps, 
averse  to  giving  his  provincial  hosts  a  new  sensation, 
"  that  the  family  is  never  satisfied,  and  also  that  the 
family  has  no  rights.  A  sitter  is  a  subject  only,  like 
a  slice  of  fish.  The  only  question  is  how  it's  done.  What 
difference  does  it  make  a  century  from  now,  if  the  like 
ness  is  good?  It's  a  work  of  art  or  it's  nothing."  He 
announced  this  principle  with  a  regal  absence  of  ex 
planation  and  turned  away;  but  his  thesis  was  taken  up 
by  another  guest,  a  New  York  art-critic. 

"  By  Jove,  it's  inconceivable,  the  ignorance  of  art  in 
America !  "  he  told  the  little  group  before  the  portrait. 
"  You  find  everyone  so  incurably  personal  in  his  point  of 
view  .  .  .  always  objecting  to  a  masterpiece  because  the 
watch-chain  isn't  the  kind  usually  worn  by  the  dear 
departed." 

Someone  else  chimed  in.  "  Yes,  it's  incredible  that 
anyone,  even  an  old  village  granny,  should  be  able  to  look 
at  that  canvas  and  not  be  struck  speechless  by  its  quality." 

The  critic  was  in  Middletown  to  report  on  the  portrait 
and  he  now  began  marshaling  his  adjectives  for  that  pur 
pose.  "  I  never  saw  such  use  of  pigment  in  my  life  .  .  . 
it  makes  the  Whistler  '  Carlyle '  look  like  burnt-out 
ashes  .  .  .  the  luminous  richness  of  the  blacks  in  the 
academic  gown,  the  masterly  generalization  in  the  treat 
ment  of  the  hair,  the  placing  of  those  great  talons  of 
hands  on  the  canvas  carrying  out  the  vigorous  lines  of 
the  composition,  and  the  unforgettable  felicity  of  those 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER  91 

brutally  red  lips  as  the  one  ringing  note  of  color.  As  for 
life-likeness,  what's  the  old  dame  talking  about!  I  never 
saw  such  eyes!  Not  a  hint  of  meretricious  emphasis  on 
their  luster  and  yet  they  fairly  flame." 

The  conversation  spread  to  a  less  technical  discussion 
as  the  group  was  joined  by  the  professor  of  rhetoric,  an 
ambitious  young  man  with  an  insatiable  craving  for 
sophistication,  who  felt  himself  for  once  entirely  in  his 
element  in  the  crowd  of  celebrities.  "  It's  incredibly  good 
luck  that  our  little  two-for-a-cent  college  should  have 
so  fine  a  thing,"  he  said  knowingly.  "  I've  been  wonder 
ing  how  such  an  old  skinflint  as  Gridley  ever  got  the 
money  loose  to  have  his  portrait  done  by— 

A  laugh  went  around  the  group  at  the  idea.  "  It  was 
Mackintosh,  the  sugar  king,  who  put  up  for  it.  He's  a 
great  Gridleyite,  and  persuaded  him  to  sit." 

"  Persuade  a  man  to  sit  to  Falleres !  "  The  rhetoric 
professor  was  outraged  at  the  idea. 

"  Yes,  so  they  say.  The  professor  was  dead  against 
it  from  the  first.  Falleres  himself  had  to  beg  him  to  sit. 
Falleres  said  he  felt  a  real  inspiration  at  the  sight  of  the 
old  fellow  .  .  .  knew  he  could  make  a  good  thing  out 
of  him.  He  was  a  good  subject !  " 

The  little  group  turned  and  stared  appraisingly  at 
the  portrait  hanging  so  close  to  them  that  it  seemed 
another  living  being  in  their  midst.  The  rhetoric  pro 
fessor  was  asked  what  kind  of  a  man  the  philosopher 
had  been  personally,  and  answered  briskly :  "  Oh,  no 
body  knew  him  personally  .  .  .  the  silent  old  codger. 
He  was  a  dry-as-dust,  bloodless,  secular  monk " 

He  was  interrupted  by  a  laugh  from  the  art-critic, 
whose  eyes  were  still  on  the  portrait. 


92  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

"  Excuse  me  for  my  cynical  mirth,"  he  said,  "  but 
I  must  say  he  doesn't  look  it.  I  was  prepared  for  any 
characterization  but  that.  He  looks  like  a  powerful 
son  of  the  Renaissance,  who  might  have  lived  in  that  one 
little  vacation  of  the  soul  after  medievalism  stopped 
hag-riding  us,  and  before  the  modern  conscience  got 
its  claws  on  us.  And  you  say  he  was  a  blue-nosed 
Puritan!" 

The  professor  of  rhetoric  looked  an  uneasy  fear  that 
he  was  being  ridiculed.  "  I  only  repeated  the  village  no 
tion  of  him,"  he  said  airily.  "  He  may  have  been  any 
thing.  All  I  know  is  that  he  was  as  secretive  as  a  clam, 
and  about  as  interesting  personally." 

"Look  at  the  picture,"  said  the  critic,  still  laughing; 
"  you'll  know  all  about  him !  " 

The  professor  of  rhetoric  nodded.  "  You're  right, 
he  doesn't  look  much  like  my  character  of  him.  I  never 
seem  to  have  had  a  good,  square  look  at  him  before. 
I've  heard  several  people  say  the  same  thing,  that  they 
seemed  to  understand  him  better  from  the  portrait  than 
from  his  living  face.  There  was  something  about  his 
eyes  that  kept  you  from  thinking  of  anything  but  what 
he  was  saying." 

The  critic  agreed.  "  The  eyes  are  wonderful  .  .  . 
ruthless  in  their  power  .  .  .  fires  of  hell."  He  laughed 
a  deprecating  apology  for  his  overemphatic  metaphor 
and  suggested :  "  It's  possible  that  there  was  more  to 
the  professorial  life  than  met  the  eye.  Had  he  a  wife?  " 

"  No ;  it  was  always  a  joke  in  the  village  that  he  would 
never  look  at  a  woman." 

The  critic  glanced  up  at  the  smoldering  eyes  of  the 
portrait  and  smiled.  "  I've  heard  of  that  kind  of  a  man 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER  93 

before,"  he  said.  "  Never  known  to  drink,  either,  I 
suppose  ? " 

"  Cold-water  teetotaler,"  laughed  the  professor,  catch 
ing  the  spirit  of  the  occasion. 

"  Look  at  the  color  in  that  nose !  "  said  the  critic.  "  I 
fancy  that  the  ascetic  moralist— 

A  very  young  man,  an  undergraduate  who  had  been 
introduced  as  the  junior  usher,  nodded  his  head.  '  Yep, 
a  lot  of  us  fellows  always  thought  old  Grid  a  little  too 
good  to  be  true." 

An  older  man  with  the  flexible  mouth  of  a  politician 
now  ventured  a  contribution  to  a  conversation  no  longer 
bafflingly  esthetic :  "  His  father,  old  Governor  Gridley, 
wasn't  he  ...  Well,  I  guess  you're  right  about  the 
son.  No  halos  were  handed  down  in  that  family !  " 

The  laugh  which  followed  this  speech  was  stopped 
by  the  approach  of  Falleres,  his  commanding  presence 
dwarfing  the  president  beside  him.  He  was  listening  with 
a  good-natured  contempt  to  the  apparently  rather  anxious 
murmurs  of  the  latter. 

"  Of  course  I  know,  Mr.  Falleres,  it  is  a  great  deal  to 
ask,  but  she  is  so  insistent  ...  she  won't  go  away  and 
continues  to  make  the  most  distressing  spectacle  of  her 
self  .  .  .  and  several  people,  since  she  has  said  so  much 
about  it,  are  saying  that  the  expression  is  not  that  of  the 
late  professor.  Much  against  my  will  I  promised  to  speak 
to  you " 

His  mortified  uneasiness  was  so  great  that  the  artist 
gave  him  a  rescuing  hand.  "  Well,  Mr.  President,  what 
can  I  do  in  the  matter  ?  The  man  is  dead.  I  cannot  paint 
him  over  again,  and  if  I  could  I  would  only  do  again  as  I 
did  this  time,  choose  that  aspect  which  my  judgment  told 


94  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

me  would  make  the  best  portrait.  If  his  habitual  vacant 
expression  was  not  so  interesting  as  another  not  so  perma 
nent  a  habit  of  his  face  .  .  .  why,  the  poor  artist  must  be 
allowed  some  choice.  I  did  not  know  I  was  to  please  his 
grandmother,  and  not  posterity." 

"  His  aunt,"  corrected  the  president  automatically. 

The  portrait-painter  accepted  the  correction  with  his 
tolerant  smile.  "  His  aunt,"  he  repeated.  "  The  differ 
ence  is  considerable.  May  I  ask  what  it  was  you  promised 
her?" 

The  president  summoned  his  courage.  It  was  easy  to 
gather  from  his  infinitely  reluctant  insistence  how  pain 
ful  and  compelling  had  been  the  scene  which  forced  him 
to  action.  "  She  wants  you  to  change  it  ...  to  make 
the  expression  of  the " 

For  the  first  time  the  artist's  equanimity  was  shaken. 
He  took  a  step  backward.  "  Change  it !  "  he  said,  and 
although  his  voice  was  low  the  casual  chat  all  over 
the  room  stopped  short  as  though  a  pistol  had  been 
fired. 

"  It's  not  my  idea !  "  The  president  confounded  himself 
in  self -exoneration.  "  I  merely  promised,  to  pacify  her, 
to  ask  you  if  you  could  not  do  some  little  thing  that 
would " 

The  critic  assumed  the  role  of  conciliator.  "  My  dear 
sir,  I  don't  believe  you  quite  understand  what  you  are  ask 
ing.  It's  as  though  you  asked  a  priest  to  make  just  a 
little  change  in  the  church  service  and  leave  out  the  '  not ' 
in  the  Commandments." 

"  I  only  wish  to  know  Mr.  Falleres's  attitude,"  said 
the  president  stiffly,  a  little  nettled  by  the  other's  note  of 
condescension.  "  I  presume  he  will  be  willing  to  take  the 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER  95 

responsibility  of  it  himself  and  explain  to  the  professor's 
aunt  that  7  have  done " 

The  artist  had  recovered  from  his  lapse  from  Olympian 
calm  and  now  nodded,  smiling:  "  Dear  me,  yes,  Mr. 
President,  I'm  used  to  irate  relatives." 

The  president  hastened  away  and  the  knots  of  talkers 
in  other  parts  of  the  room,  who  had  been  looking  with 
expectant  curiosity  at  the  group  before  the  portrait,  re 
sumed  their  loud-toned  chatter.  When  their  attention 
was  next  drawn  in  the  same  direction,  it  was  by  a  shaky 
old  treble,  breaking,  quavering  with  weakness.  A  small, 
shabby  old  woman,  leaning  on  a  crutch,  stood  looking  up 
imploringly  at  the  tall  painter. 

"  My  dear  madam,"  he  broke  in  on  her  with  a  kindly 
impatience,  "  all  that  you  say  about  Professor  Gridley 
is  much  to  his  credit,  but  what  has  it  to  do  with  me  ?  " 

"  You  painted  his  portrait,"  she  said  with  a  simplicity 
that  was  like  stupidity.  "  And  I  am  his  aunt.  You  made 
a  picture  of  a  bad  man.  I  know  he  was  a  good  man." 

"  I  painted  what  I  saw,"  sighed  the  artist  wearily.  He 
looked  furtively  at  his  watch. 

The  old  woman  seemed  dazed  by  the  extremity  of  her 
emotion.  She  looked  about  her  silently,  keeping  her  eyes 
averted  from  the  portrait  that  stood  so  vividly  like  a  liv 
ing  man  beside  her.  "  I  don't  know  what  to  do !  "  she 
murmured  with  a  little  moan.  "  I  can't  bear  it  to  have  it 
stay  here — people  forget  so.  Everybody'll  think  that 
Gridley  looked  like  that!  And  there  isn't  anybody  but 
me.  He  never  had  anybody  but  me." 

The  critic  tried  to  clear  the  air  by  a  roundly  declaratory 
statement  of  principles.  '  You'll  pardon  my  bluntness, 
madam ;  but  you  must  remember  that  none  but  the  mem- 


96  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

bers  of  Professor  Gridley's  family  are  concerned  in  the 
exact  details  of  his  appearance.  Fifty  years  from  now 
nobody  will  remember  how  he  looked,  one  way  or  the 
other.  The  world  is  only  concerned  with  portraits  as 
works  of  art." 

She  followed  his  reasoning  with  a  strained  and  docile 
attention  and  now  spoke  eagerly  as  though  struck  by  an 
unexpected  hope:  "  If  that's  all,  why  put  his  name  to  it? 
Just  hang  it  up,  and  call  it  anything." 

She  shrank  together  timidly  and  her  eyes  reddened  at 
the  laughter  which  greeted  this  na'ive  suggestion. 

Falleres  looked  annoyed  and  called  his  defender  off. 
"  Oh,  never  mind  explaining  me,"  he  said,  snapping  his 
watch  shut.  "  You'll  never  get  the  rights  of  it  through 
anybody's  head  who  hasn't  himself  sweat  blood  over  a 
composition  only  to  be  told  that  the  other  side  of  the  sit 
ter's  profile  is  usually  considered  the  prettier.  After  all, 
we  have  the  last  word,  since  the  sitter  dies  and  the  por 
trait  lives." 

The  old  woman  started  and  looked  at  him  atten 
tively. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  critic,  laughing,  "  immortality's  not  a 
bad  balm  for  pin-pricks." 

The  old  woman  turned  very  pale  and  for  the  first  time 
looked  again  at  the  portrait.  An  electric  thrill  seemed  to 
pass  through  her  as  her  eyes  encountered  the  bold,  evil 
ones  fixed  on  her.  She  stood  erect  with  a  rigid  face,  and 
"  Immortality !  "  she  said,  under  her  breath. 

Falleres  moved  away  to  make  his  adieux  to  the  presi 
dent,  and  the  little  group  of  his  satellites  straggled  after 
him  to  the  other  end  of  the  room.  For  a  moment  there 
was  no  one  near  the  old  woman  to  see  the  crutch  furiously 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  PHILOSOPHER  97 

upraised,  hammer-like,  or  to  stop  her  sudden  passionate 
rush  upon  the  picture. 

At  the  sound  of  cracking  cloth,  they  turned  back,  hor 
rified.  They  saw  her,  with  an  insane  violence,  thrust  her 
hands  into  the  gaping  hole  that  had  been  the  portrait's 
face  and,  tearing  the  canvas  from  end  to  end,  fall  upon 
the  shreds  with  teeth  and  talon. 

All  but  Falleres  flung  themselves  toward  her,  drag 
ging  her  away.  With  a  movement  as  instinctive  he 
rushed  for  the  picture,  and  it  was  to  him,  as  he  stood 
aghast  before  the  ruined  canvas,  that  the  old  woman's 
shrill  treble  was  directed,  above  the  loud  shocked  voices 
of  those  about  her :  "  There  ain't  anything  immortal  but 
souls !  "  she  cried. 


FLINT  AND  FIRE 

MY  husband's  cousin  had  come  up  from  the  city, 
slightly  more  fagged  and  sardonic  than  usual,  and  as  he 
stretched  himself  out  in  the  big  porch-chair  he  was  even 
more  caustic  than  was  his  wont  about  the  bareness  and 
emotional  sterility  of  the  lives  of  our  country  people. 

"  Perhaps  they  had,  a  couple  of  centuries  ago,  when  the 
Puritan  hallucination  was  still  strong,  a  certain  fierce 
savor  of  religious  intolerance;  but  now  that  that  has 
died  out,  and  no  material  prosperity  has  come  to  let  them 
share  in  the  larger  life  of  their  century,  there  is  a  flatness, 
a  mean  absence  of  warmth  or  color,  a  deadness  to  all  emo 
tions  but  the  pettiest  sorts " 

I  pushed  the  pitcher  nearer  him,  clinking  the  ice  in 
vitingly,  and  directed  his  attention  to  our  iris-bed  as  a 
more  cheerful  object  of  contemplation  than  the  degen 
eracy  of  the  inhabitants  of  Vermont.  The  flowers  burned 
on  their  tall  stalks  like  yellow  tongues  of  flame.  The 
strong,  sword-like  green  leaves  thrust  themselves  boldly 
up  into  the  spring  air  like  a  challenge.  The  plants  vi 
brated  with  vigorous  life. 

In  the  field  beyond  them,  as  vigorous  as  they,  strode 
Adoniram  Purdon  behind  his  team,  the  reins  tied  to 
gether  behind  his  muscular  neck,  his  hands  grasping 
the  plow  with  the  masterful  sureness  of  the  successful 
practitioner  of  an  art.  The  hot,  sweet  spring  sunshine 
shone  down  on  'Niram's  head  with  its  thick  crest  of 

99 


ioo  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

brown  hair,  the  ineffable  odor  of  newly  turned  earth 
steamed  up  about  him  like  incense,  the  mountain  stream 
beyond  him  leaped  and  shouted.  His  powerful  body  an 
swered  every  call  made  on  it  with  the  precision  of  a 
splendid  machine.  But  there  was  no  elation  in  the  grimly 
set  face  as  'Niram  wrenched  the  plow  around  a  big 
stone,  or  as,  in  a  more  favorable  furrow,  the  gleaming 
share  sped  steadily  along  before  the  plowman,  turning 
over  a  long,  unbroken  brown  ribbon  of  earth. 

My  cousin-in-law  waved  a  nervous  hand  toward  the 
sternly  silent  figure  as  it  stepped  doggedly  behind  the 
straining  team,  the  head  bent  forward,  the  eyes  fixed  on 
the  horses'  heels. 

"  There!  "  he  said.  "  There  is  an  example  of  what  I 
mean.  Is  there  another  race  on  earth  which  could  pro 
duce  a  man  in  such  a  situation  who  would  not  on  such 
a  day  sing,  or  whistle,  or  at  least  hold  up  his  head  and 
look  at  all  the  earthly  glories  about  him?  " 

I  was  silent,  but  not  for  lack  of  material  for  speech. 
'Niram's  reasons  for  austere  self-control  were  not  such  as 
I  cared  to  discuss  with  a  man  of  my  cousin's  mental  atti 
tude.  As  we  sat  looking  at  him  the  noon  whistle  from  the 
village  blew  and  the  wise  old  horses  stopped  in  the  middle 
of  a  furrow.  'Niram  unharnessed  them,  led  them  to  the 
shade  of  a  tree,  and  put  on  their  nose-bags.  Then  he 
turned  and  came  toward  the  house. 

"  Don't  I  seem  to  remember,"  murmured  my  cousin 
under  his  breath,  "  that,  even  though  he  is  a  New-Eng- 
lander,  he  has  been  known  to  make  up  errands  to  your 
kitchen  to  see  your  pretty  Ev'leen  Ann?  " 

I  looked  at  him  hard;  but  he  was  only  gazing  down, 
rather  cross-eyed,  on  his  grizzled  mustache,  with  an  ob- 


FLINT  AND  FIRE  io\ 

vious  petulant  interest  in  the  increase  of  white  hairs  in 
it.  Evidently  his  had  been  but  a  chance  shot.  'Niram 
stepped  up  on  the  grass  at  the  edge  of  the  porch.  He 
was  so  tall  that  he  overtopped  the  railing  easily,  and, 
reaching  a  long  arm  over  to  where  I  sat,  he  handed  me  a 
small  package  done  up  in  yellowish  tissue-paper.  With 
out  hat-raisings,  or  good-mornings,  or  any  other  of  the 
greetings  usual  in  a  more  effusive  civilization,  he  ex 
plained  briefly: 

"  My  stepmother  wanted  I  should  give  you  this.  She 
said  to  thank  you  for  the  grape-juice."  As  he  spoke  he 
looked  at  me  gravely  out  of  deep-set  blue  eyes,  and  when 
he  had  delivered  his  message  he  held  his  peace. 

I  expressed  myself  with  the  babbling  volubility  of  one 
whose  manners  have  been  corrupted  by  occasional  so 
journs  in  the  city.  "  Oh,  'Niram !  "  I  cried  protestingly, 
as  I  opened  the  package  and  took  out  an  exquisitely 
wrought  old-fashioned  collar.  "  Oh,  'Niram!  How 
could  your  stepmother  give  such  a  thing  away?  Why, 
it  must  be  one  of  her  precious  old  relics.  I  don't  want 
her  to  give  me  something  every  time  I  do  some  little 
thing  for  her.  Can't  a  neighbor  send  her  in  a  few  bottles 
of  grape-juice  without  her  thinking  she  must  pay  it  back 
somehow?  It's  not  kind  of  her.  She  has  never  yet  let 
me  do  the  least  thing  for  her  without  repaying  me  with 
something  that  is  worth  ever  so  much  more  than  my  tri 
fling  services." 

When  I  had  finished  my  prattling,  'Niram  repeated, 
with  an  accent  of  finality,  "  She  wanted  I  should  give  it 
to  you." 

The  older  man  stirred  in  his  chair.  Without  looking 
at  him  I  knew  that  his  gaze  on  the  young  rustic  was 


,02  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

quizzical  and  that  he  was  recording  on  the  tablets  of  his 
merciless  memory  the  ungraceful  abruptness  of  the  other's 
action  and  manner. 

"How  is  your  stepmother  feeling  to-day,  'Niram?" 
I  asked. 

"  Worse." 

'Niram  came  to  a  full  stop  with  the  word.  My  cousin 
covered  his  satirical  mouth  with  his  hand. 

"Can't  the  doctor  do  anything  to  relieve  her?"  I 
asked. 

'Niram  moved  at  last  from  his  Indian-like  immobility. 
He  looked  up  under  the  brim  of  his  felt  hat  at  the  sky 
line  of  the  mountain,  shimmering  iridescent  above  us. 
"  He  says  maybe  'lectricity  would  help  her  some.  I'm 
goin'  to  git  her  the  batteries  and  things  soon's  I  git  the 
rubber  bandages  paid  for." 

There  was  a  long  silence.  My  cousin  stood  up,  yawn 
ing,  and  sauntered  away  toward  the  door.  "  Shall  I 
send  Ev'leen  Ann  out  to  get  the  pitcher  and  glasses?" 
he  asked  in  an  accent  which  he  evidently  thought  very 
humorously  significant. 

The  strong  face  under  the  felt  hat  turned  white,  the 
jaw  muscles  set  hard,  but  for  all  this  show  of  strength 
there  was  an  instant  when  the  man's  eyes  looked  out  with 
the  sick,  helpless  revelation  of  pain  they  might  have  had 
when  'Niram  was  a  little  boy  of  ten,  a  third  of  his  present 
age,  and  less  than  half  his  present  stature.  Occasionally 
it  is  horrifying  to  see  how  a  chance  shot  rings  the  bell. 

"  No,  no !  Never  mind !  "  I  said  hastily.  "  I'll  take 
the  tray  in  when  I  go." 

Without  salutation  or  farewell  'Niram  Purdon  turned 
and  went  back  to  his  work. 


FLINT  AND  FIRE  103 

The  porch  was  an  enchanted  place,  walled  around  with 
starlit  darkness,  visited  by  wisps  of  breezes  shaking  down 
from  their  wings  the  breath  of  lilac  and  syringa,  flower 
ing  wild  grapes,  and  plowed  fields.  Down  at  the  foot 
of  our  sloping  lawn  the  little  river,  still  swollen  by  the 
melted  snow  from  the  mountains,  plunged  between  its 
stony  banks  and  shouted  its  brave  song  to  the  stars. 

We  three  middle-aged  people — Paul,  his  cousin,  and  I 
— had  disposed  our  uncomely,  useful,  middle-aged  bodies 
in  the  big  wicker  chairs  and  left  them  there  while  our 
young  souls  wandered  abroad  in  the  sweet,  dark  glory  of 
the  night.  At  least  Paul  and  I  were  doing  this,  as  we  sat, 
hand  in  hand,  thinking  of  a  May  night  twenty  years  be 
fore.  One  never  knows  what  Horace  is  thinking  of,  but 
apparently  he  was  not  in  his  usual  captious  vein,  for  after 
a  long  pause  he  remarked,  "  It  is  a  night  almost  indeco 
rously  inviting  to  the  making  of  love." 

My  answer  seemed  grotesquely  out  of  key  with  this, 
but  its  sequence  was  clear  in  my  mind.  I  got  up,  saying : 
"  Oh,  that  reminds  me — I  must  go  and  see  Ev'leen  Ann. 
I'd  forgotten  to  plan  to-morrow's  dinner." 

"  Oh,  everlastingly  Ev'leen  Ann!"  mocked  Horace 
from  his  corner.  "  Can't  you  think  of  anything  but 
Ev'leen  Ann  and  her  affairs?" 

I  felt  my  way  through  the  darkness  of  the  house,  to 
ward  the  kitchen,  both  doors  of  which  were  tightly 
closed.  When  I  stepped  into  the  hot,  close  room,  smell 
ing  of  food  and  fire,  I  saw  Ev'leen  Ann  sitting  on  the 
straight  kitchen  chair,  the  yellow  light  of  the  bracket- 
lamp  beating  down  on  her  heavy  braids  and  bringing  out 
the  exquisitely  subtle  modeling  of  her  smooth  young  face. 
Her  hands  were  folded  in  her  lap.  She  was  staring  at 


io4  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

the  blank  wall,  and  the  expression  of  her  eyes  so  startled 
and  shocked  me  that  I  stopped  short  and  would  have 
retreated  if  it  had  not  been  too  late.  She  had  seen  me, 
roused  herself,  and  said  quietly,  as  though  continuing  a 
conversation  interrupted  the  moment  before: 

"  I  had  been  thinking  that  there  was  enough  left  of  the 
roast  to  make  hash-balls  for  dinner  " — "  hash-balls  "  is 
Ev'leen  Ann's  decent  Anglo-Saxon  name  for  croquettes 
— "  and  maybe  you'd  like  a  rhubarb  pie." 

I  knew  well  enough  she  had  been  thinking  of  no  such 
thing,  but  I  could  as  easily  have  slapped  a  reigning  sover 
eign  on  the  back  as  broken  in  on  the  regal  reserve  of 
Ev'leen  Ann  in  her  clean  gingham. 

"  Well,  yes,  Ev'leen  Ann,"  I  answered  in  her  own  tone 
of  reasonable  consideration  of  the  matter;  "that  would 
be  nice,  and  your  pie-crust  is  so  flaky  that  even  Mr. 
Horace  will  have  to  be  pleased." 

"  Mr.  Horace  "  is  our  title  for  the  sardonic  cousin 
whose  carping  ways  are  half  a  joke,  and  half  a  menace 
in  our  family. 

Ev'leen  Ann  could  not  manage  the  smile  which  should 
have  greeted  this  sally.  She  looked  down  soberly  at  the 
white-pine  top  of  the  kitchen  table  and  said,  "  I  guess 
there  is  enough  sparrow-grass  up  in  the  garden  for  a 
mess,  too,  if  you'd  like  that." 

"  That  would  taste  very  good,"  I  agreed,  my  heart 
aching  for  her. 

"  And  creamed  potatoes,"  she  finished  bravely,  thrust 
ing  my  unspoken  pity  from  her. 

"  You  know  I  like  creamed  potatoes  better  than  any 
other  kind,"  I  concurred. 

There  was  a  silence.     It  seemed  inhuman  to  go  and 


FLINT  AND  FIRE  105 

leave  the  stricken  young  thing  to  fight  her  trouble  alone 
in  the  ugly  prison,  her  work-place,  though  I  thought  I 
could  guess  why  Ev'leen  Ann  had  shut  the  doors  so 
tightly.  I  hung  near  her,  searching  my  head  for  some 
thing  to  say,  but  she  helped  me  by  no  casual  remark. 
'Niram  is  not  the  only  one  of  our  people  who  possesses 
to  the  full  the  supreme  gift  of  silence.  Finally  I  men 
tioned  the  report  of  a  case  of  measles  in  the  village,  and 
Ev'leen  Ann  responded  in  kind  with  the  news  that  her 
Aunt  Emma  had  bought  a  potato-planter.  Ev'leen  Ann 
is  an  orphan,  brought  up  by  a  well-to-do  spinster  aunt, 
who  is  strong-minded  and  runs  her  own  farm.  After  a 
time  we  glided  by  way  of  similar  transitions  to  the  men 
tion  of  his  name. 

"  'Niram  Purdon  tells  me  his  stepmother  is  no  better," 
I  said.  "  Isn't  it  too  bad  ?  "  I  thought  it  well  for  Ev'leen 
Ann  to  be  dragged  out  of  her  black  cave  of  silence  once 
in  a  while,  even  if  it  could  be  done  only  by  force.  As 
she  made  no  answer,  I  went  on.  "  Everybody  who  knows 
'Niram  thinks  it  splendid  of  him  to  do  so  much  for  his 
stepmother." 

Ev'leen  Ann  responded  with  a  detached  air,  as  though 
speaking  of  a  matter  in  China :  "  Well,  it  ain't  any  more 
than  what  he  should.  She  was  awful  good  to  him  when 
he  was  little  and  his  father  got  so  sick.  I  guess  'Niram 
wouldn't  ha'  had  much  to  eat  if  she  hadn't  ha'  gone  out 
sewing  to  earn  it  for  him  and  Mr.  Purdon."  She  added 
firmly,  after  a  moment's  pause,  "  No,  ma'am,  I  don't 
guess  it's  any  more  than  what  'Niram  had  ought  to  do." 

"  But  it's  very  hard  on  a  young  man  to  feel  that  he's 
not  able  to  marry,"  I  continued.  Once  in  a  great  while 
we  came  so  near  the  matter  as  this.  Ev'leen  Ann  made  no 


106  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

answer.  Her  face  took  on  a  pinched  look  of  sickness.  She 
set  her  lips  as  though  she  would  never  speak  again.  But 
I  knew  that  a  criticism  of  'Niram  would  always  rouse 
her,  and  said :  "  And  really,  I  think  'Niram  makes  a  great 
mistake  to  act  as  he  does.  A  wife  would  be  a  help  to 
him.  She  could  take  care  of  Mrs.  Purdon  and  keep  the 
house." 

Ev'leen  Ann  rose  to  the  bait,  speaking  quickly  with 
some  heat :  "  I  guess  'Niram  knows  what's  right  for  him 
to  do !  He  can't  afford  to  marry  when  he  can't  even  keep 
up  with  the  doctor's  bills  and  all.  He  keeps  the  house 
himself,  nights  and  mornings,  and  Mrs.  Purdon  is  awful 
handy  about  taking  care  of  herself,  for  all  she's  bedrid 
den.  That's  her  way,  you  know.  She  can't  bear  to  have 
folks  do  for  her.  She'd  die  before  she'd  let  anybody  do 
anything  for  her  that  she  could  anyways  do  for  herself !  " 

I  sighed  acquiescingly.  Mrs.  Purdon's  fierce  independ 
ence  was  a  rock  on  which  every  attempt  at  sympathy  or 
help  shattered  itself  to  atoms.  There  seemed  to  be  no 
other  emotion  left  in  her  poor  old 'work-worn  shell  of  a 
body.  As  I  looked  at  Ev'leen  Ann  it  seemed  rather  a 
hateful  characteristic,  and  I  remarked,  "  It  seems  to  me 
it's  asking  a  good  deal  of  'Niram  to  spoil  his  life  in  order 
that  his  stepmother  can  go  on  pretending  she's  independ-- 
ent." 

Ev'leen  Ann  explained  hastily:  "Oh,  'Niram  doesn't 
tell  her  anything  about — She  doesn't  know  he  would  like 
to — he  don't  want  she  should  be  worried — and,  anyhow, 
as  'tis,  he  can't  earn  enough  to  keep  ahead  of  all  the 
doctors  cost/' 

"  But  the  right  kind  of  a  wife — a  good,  competent 
girl — could  help  out  by  earning  something,  too." 


FLINT  AND  FIRE  107 

Ev'leen  Ann  looked  at  me  forlornly,  with  no  surprise. 
The  idea  was  evidently  not  new  to  her.  "  Yes,  ma'am, 
she  could.  But  'Niram  says  he  ain't  the  kind  of  man  to 
let  his  wife  go  out  working."  Even  while  she  drooped 
under  the  killing  verdict  of  his  pride  she  was  loyal  to 
his  standards  and  uttered  no  complaint.  She  went  on, 
"'Niram  wants  Aunt  Em'line  to  have  things  the  way  she 
wants  'em,  as  near  as  he  can  give  'em  to  her — and  it's 
right  she  should." 

"  Aunt  Emeline?  "  I  repeated,  surprised  at  her  absence 
of  mind.  "  You  mean  Mrs.  Purdon,  don't  you?  " 

Ev'leen  Ann  looked  vexed  at  her  slip,  but  she  scorned 
to  attempt  any  concealment.  She  explained  dryly,  with 
-  the  shy,  stiff  embarrassment  our  country  people  have  in 
speaking  of  private  affairs:  "  Well,  she  is  my  Aunt  Em' 
line,  Mrs.  Purdon  is,  though  I  don't  hardly  ever  call  her 
that.  You  see,  Aunt  Emma  brought  me  up,  and  she  and 
Aunt  Em'line  don't  have  anything  to  do  with  each  other. 
They  were  twins,  and  when  they  were  girls  they  got 
edgeways  over  'Niram's  father,  when  'Niram  was  a  baby 
and  his  father  was  a  young  widower  and  come  court 
ing.  Then  Aunt  Em'line  married  him,  and  Aunt- Emma 
never  spoke  to  her  afterward." 

Occasionally,  in  walking  unsuspectingly  along  one  of 
our  leafy  lanes,  some  such  fiery  geyser  of  ancient  heat 
uprears  itself  in  a  boiling  column.  I'never  get  used  to 
it,  and  started  back  now. 

"  Why,  I  never  heard  of  that  before,  and  I've  known 
your  Aunt  Emma  and  Mrs.  Purdon  for  years !  " 

"Well,  they're  pretty  old  now,"  said  Ev'leen  Ann 
listlessly,  with  the  natural  indifference  of  self-centered 
youth  to  the  bygone  tragedies  of  the  preceding  genera- 


io8  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

tion.  "  It  happened  quite  some  time  ago.  And  both  of 
them  were  so  touchy,  if  anybody  seemed  to  speak  about 
it,  that  folks  got  in  the  way  of  letting  it  alone.  First 
Aunt  Emma  wouldn't  speak  to  her  sister  because  she'd 
married  the  man  she'd  wanted,  and  then  when  Aunt 
Emma  made  out  so  well  farmin'  and  got  so  well  off,  why, 
then  Mrs.  Purdon  wouldn't  try  to  make  it  up  because 
she  was  so  poor.  That  was  after  Mr.  Purdon  had  had 
his  stroke  of  paralysis  and  they'd  lost  their  farm  and 
she'd  taken  to  goin'  out  sewin' — not  but  what  she  was 
always  perfectly  satisfied  with  her  bargain.  She  always 
acted  as  though  she'd  rather  have  her  husband's  old 
shirt  stuffed  with  straw  than  any  other  man's  whole 
body.  He  was  a  real  nice  man,  I  guess,  Mr.  Purdon 
was." 

There  I  had  it — the  curt,  unexpanded  chronicle  of  two 
passionate  lives.  And  there  I  had  also  the  key  to  Mrs. 
Purdon's  fury  of  independence.  It  was  the  only  way  in 
which  she  could  defend  her  husband  against  the  charge, 
so  damning  in  her  world,  of  not  having  provided  for 
his  wife.  It  was  the  only  monument  she  could  rear  to 
her  husband's  memory.  And  her  husband  had  been  all 
there  was  in  life  for  her! 

I  stood  looking  at  her  young  kinswoman's  face,  noting 
the  granite  under  the  velvet  softness  of  its  youth,  and 
divining  the  flame  underlying  the  granite.  I  longed  to 
break  through  her  wall  and  to  put  my  arms  about  her, 
and  on  the  impulse  of  the  moment  I  cast  aside  the  pre 
tense  of  casualness  in  our  talk. 

"  Oh,  my  dear !  "  I  said.  "  Are  you  and  'Niram  always 
to  go  on  like  this  ?  Can't  anybody  help  you  ?  " 

Ev'leen  Ann  looked  at  me,  her  face  suddenly  old  and 


FLINT  AND  FIRE  109 

gray.  "  No,  ma'am;  we  ain't  going  to  go  on  this  way. 
We've  decided,  'Niram  and  I  have,  that  it  ain't  no  use. 
We've  decided  that  we'd  better  not  go  places  together  any 
more  or  see  each  other.  It's  too—  If  'Niram  thinks 
we  can't" — she  flamed  so  that  I  knew  she  was  burning 

from  head  to  foot — "  it's  better  for  us  not "  She 

ended  in  a  muffled  voice,  hiding  her  face  in  the  crook  of 
her  arm. 

Ah,  yes;  now  I  knew  why  Ev'leen  Ann  had  shut  out 
the  passionate  breath  of  the  spring  night! 

I  stood  near  her,  a  lump  in  my  throat,  but  I  divined 
the  anguish  of  her  shame  at  her  involuntary  self-revela 
tion,  and  respected  it.  I  dared  do  no  more  than  to  touch 
her  shoulder  gently. 

The  door  behind  us  rattled.  Ev'leen  Ann  sprang  up 
and  turned  her  face  toward  the  wall.  Paul's  cousin 
came  in,  shuffling  a  little,  blinking  his  eyes  in  the  light 
of  the  unshaded  lamp,  and  looking  very  cross  and  tired. 
He  glanced  at  us  without  comment  as  he  went  over  to  the 
sink.  "  Nobody  offered  me  anything  good  to  drink," 
he  complained,  "  so  I  came  in  to  get  some  water  from 
the  faucet  for  my  nightcap." 

When  he  had  drunk  with  ostentation  from  the  tin 
dipper  he  went  to  the  outside  door  and  flung  it  open. 
"  Don't  you  people  know  how  hot  and  smelly  it  is  in 
here?"  he  said,  with  his  usual  unceremonious  abrupt 
ness. 

The  night  wind  burst  in,  eddying,  and  puffed  out  the 
lamp  with  a  breath.  In  an  instant  the  room  was  filled 
with  coolness  and  perfumes  and  the  rushing  sound  of 
the  river.  Out  of  the  darkness  came  Ev'leen  Ann's  young 
voice.  "  It  seems  to  me,"  she  said,  as  though  speaking 


i  io  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

to  herself,  "  that  I  never  heard  the  Mill  Brook  sound  so 
loud  as  it  has  this  spring." 

I  woke  up  that  night  with  the  start  one  has  at  a  sudden 
call.  But  there  had  been  no  call.  A  profound  silence 
spread  itself  through  the  sleeping  house.  Outdoors  the 
wind  had  died  down.  Only  the  loud  brawl  of  the  river 
broke  the  stillness  under  the  stars.  But  all  through  this 
silence  and  this  vibrant  song  there  rang  a  soundless  men 
ace  which  brought  me  out  of  bed  and  to  my  feet  before 
I  was  awake.  I  heard  Paul  say,  "  What's  the  matter?  " 
in  a  sleepy  voice,  and  "  Nothing,"  I  answered,  reaching 
for  my  dressing-gown  and  slippers.  I  listened  for  a  mo 
ment,  my  head  ringing  with  all  the  frightening  tales  of 
the  morbid  vein  of  violence  which  runs  through  the  char 
acter  of  our  reticent  people.  There  was  still  no  sound. 
I  went  along  the  hall  and  up  the  stairs  to  Ev'leen  Ann's 
room,  and  I  opened  the  door  without  knocking.  The 
room  was  empty. 

Then  how  I  ran !  Calling  loudly  for  Paul  to  join  me, 
I  ran  down  the  two  flights  of  stairs,  out  of  the  open  door, 
and  along  the  hedged  path  which  leads  down  to  the  little 
river.  The  starlight  was  clear.  I  could  see  everything  as 
plainly  as  though  in  early  dawn.  I  saw  the  river,  and  I 
saw — Ev'leen  Ann! 

There  was  a  dreadful  moment  of  horror,  which  I  shall 
never  remember  very  clearly,  and  then  Ev'leen  Ann  and 
I — both  very  wet — stood  on  the  bank,  shuddering  in 
each  other's  arms. 

Into  our  hysteria  there  dropped,  like  a  pungent  caustic, 
the  arid  voice  of  Horace,  remarking,  "  Well,  are  you 
two  people  crazy,  or  are  you  walking  in  your  sleep  ?  " 


FLINT  AND  FIRE  in 

I  could  feel  Ev'leen  Ann  stiffen  in  my  arms,  and  I 
fairly  stepped  back  from  her  in  astonished  admiration 
as  I  heard  her  snatch  at  the  straw  thus  offered,  and  still 
shuddering  horribly  from  head  to  foot,  force  herself  to 
say  quite  connectedly :  "  Why — yes — of  course — I've  al 
ways  heard  about  my  grandfather  Parkman's  walking  in 
his  sleep.  Folks  said  'twould  come  out  in  the  family 
some  time." 

Paul  was  close  behind  Horace — I  wondered  a  little  at 
his  not  being  first — and  with  many  astonished  and  inane 
ejaculations,  such  as  people  always  make  on  startling  oc 
casions,  we  made  our  way  back  into  the  house  to  hot 
blankets  and  toddies.  But  I  slept  no  more  that  night. 

Some  time  after  dawn,  however,  I  did  fall  into  a 
troubled  unconsciousness  full  of  bad  dreams,  and  only 
woke  when  the  sun  was  quite  high.  I  opened  my  eyes 
to  see  Ev'leen  Ann  about  to  close  the  door. 

"  Oh,  did  I  wake  you  up?  "  she  said.  "  I  didn't  mean 
to.  That  little  Harris  boy  is  here  with  a  letter  for 
you." 

She  spoke  with  a  slightly  defiant  tone  of  self-posses 
sion.  I  tried  to  play  up  to  her  interpretation  of  her  role. 

"The  little  Harris  boy?"  I  said,  sitting  up  in  bed. 
"  What  in  the  world  is  he  bringing  me  a  letter  for? " 

Ev'leen  Ann,  with  her  usual  clear  perception  of  the 
superfluous  in  conversation,  vouchsafed  no  opinion  on  a 
matter  where  she  had  no  information,  but  went  down 
stairs  and  brought  back  the  note.  It  was  of  four  lines, 
and — surprisingly  enough — from  old  Mrs.  Purdon,  who 
asked  me  abruptly  if  I  would  have  my  husband  take  me 
to  see  her.  She  specified,  and  underlined  the  specifica 
tion,  that  I  was  to  come  "  right  off,  and  in  the  automo- 


ii2  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

bile."  Wondering  extremely  at  this  mysterious  bidding, 
I  sought  out  Paul,  who  obediently  cranked  up  our  small 
car  and  carried  me  off.  There  was  no  sign  of  Horace 
about  the  house,  but  some  distance  on  the  other  side  of 
the  village  we  saw  his  tall,  stooping  figure  swinging  along 
the  road.  He  carried  a  cane  and  was  characteristically 
occupied  in  violently  switching  off  the  heads  from  the 
wayside  weeds  as  he  walked.  He  refused  our  offer  to 
take  him  in,  alleging  that  he  was  out  for  exercise  and  to 
reduce  his  flesh — an  ancient  jibe  at  his  bony  frame  which 
made  him  for  an  instant  show  a  leathery  smile. 

There  was,  of  course,  no  one  at  Mrs.  Purdon's  to  let 
us  into  the  tiny,  three-roomed  house,  since  the  bedridden 
invalid  spent  her  days  there  alone  while  'Niram  worked 
his  team  on  other  people's  fields.  Not  knowing  what  we 
might  find,  Paul  stayed  outside  in  the  car,  while  I  stepped 
inside  in  answer  to  Mrs.  Purdon's  "  Come  in,  why  don't 
you !  "  which  sounded  quite  as  dry  as  usual.  But  when 
I  saw  her  I  knew  that  things  were  not  as  usual. 

She  lay  flat  on  her  back,  the  little  emaciated  wisp  of 
humanity,  hardly  raising  the  piecework  quilt  enough  to 
make  the  bed  seem  occupied,  and  to  account  for  the  thin, 
worn  old  face  on  the  pillow.  But  as  I  entered  the  room 
her  eyes  seized  on  mine,  and  I  was  aware  of  nothing  but 
them  and  some  fury  of  determination  behind  them.  With 
a  fierce  heat  of  impatience  at  my  first  natural  but  quickly 
repressed  exclamation  of  surprise  she  explained  briefly 
that  she  wanted  Paul  to  lift  her  into  the  automobile  and 
take  her  into  the  next  township  to  the  Hulett  farm.  "  I'm 
so  shrunk  away  to  nothin',  I  know  I  can  lay  on  the  back 
seat  if  I  crook  myself  up,"  she  said,  with  a  cool  accent 
but  a  rather  shaky  voice.  Seeming  to  realize  that 


FLINT  AND  FIRE  113 

even  her  intense  desire  to  strike  the  matter-of-fact 
note  could  not  take  the  place  of  any  and  all  expla 
nation  of  her  extraordinary  request,  she  added,  hold 
ing  my  eyes  steady  with  her  own :  "  Emma  Hulett's 
my  twin  sister.  I  guess  it  ain't  so  queer,  my  wanting  to 
see  her." 

I  thought,  of  course,  we  were  to  be  used  as  the 
medium  for  some  strange,  sudden  family  reconciliation, 
and  went  out  to  ask  Paul  if  he  thought  he  could  carry 
the  old  invalid  to  the  car.  He  replied  that,  so  far  as  that 
went,  he  could  carry  so  thin  an  old  body  ten  times  around 
the  town,  but  that  he  refused  absolutely  to  take  such  a 
risk  without  authorization  from  her  doctor.  I  remem 
bered  the  burning  eyes  of  resolution  I  had  left  inside,  and 
sent  him  to  present  his  objections  to  Mrs.  Purdon  her 
self. 

In  a  few  moments  I  saw  him  emerge  from  the  house 
with  the  old  woman  in  his  arms.  He  had  evidently 
taken  her  up  just  as  she  lay.  The  piecework  quilt 
hung  down  in  long  folds,  flashing  its  brilliant  reds  and 
greens  in  the  sunshine,  which  shone  so  strangely  upon 
the  pallid  old  countenance,  facing  the  open  sky  for  the 
first  time  in  years. 

We  drove  in  silence  through  the  green  and  gold  lyric 
of  the  spring  day,  an  elderly  company  sadly  out  of  key 
with  the  triumphant  note  of  eternal  youth  which  rang 
through  all  the  visible  world.  Mrs.  Purdon  looked  at 
nothing,  said  nothing,  seemed  to  be  aware  of  nothing  but 
the  purpose  in  her  heart,  whatever  that  might  be.  Paul 
and  I,  taking  a  leaf  from  our  neighbors'  book,  held,  with 
a  courage  like  theirs,  to  their  excellent  habit  of  saying 
nothing  when  there  is  nothing  to  say.  We  arrived  at 


ii4  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

the  fine  old  Hulett  place  without  the  exchange  of  a  single 
word.  « 

"  Now  carry  me  in,"  said  Mrs.  Purdon  briefly,  evi 
dently  hoarding  her  strength. 

"Wouldn't  I  better  go  and  see  if  Miss  Hulett  is  at 
home  ?  "  I  asked. 

Mrs.  Purdon  shook  her  head  impatiently  and  turned 
her  compelling  eyes  on  my  husband.  I  went  up  the  path 
before  them  to  knock  at  the  door,  wondering  what  the 
people  in  the  house  would  possibly  be  thinking  of  us. 
There  was  no  answer  to  my  knock.  "  Open  the  door  and 
go  in,"  commanded  Mrs.  Purdon  from  out  her  quilt. 

There  was  no  one  in  the  spacious,  white-paneled  hall, 
and  no  sound  in  all  the  big,  many-roomed  house. 

"  Emma's  out  feeding  the  hens,"  conjectured  Mrs.  Pur 
don,  not,  I  fancied,  without  a  faint  hint  of  relief  in  her 
voice.  "  Now  carry  me  up-stairs  to  the  first  room  on  the 
right." 

Half  hidden  by  his  burden,  Paul  rolled  wildly  inquiring 
eyes  at  me;  but  he  obediently  staggered  up  the  broad  old 
staircase,  and,  waiting  till  I  had  opened  the  first  door 
to  the  right,  stepped  into  the  big  bedroom. 

"  Put  me  down  on  the  bed,  and  open  them  shutters," 
Mrs.  Purdon  commanded. 

She  still  marshaled  her  forces  with  no  lack  of  decision, 
but  with  a  fainting  voice  which  made  me  run  over  to  her 
quickly  as  Paul  laid  her  down  on  the  four-poster.  Her 
eyes  were  still  indomitable,  but  her  mouth  hung  open 
slackly  and  her  color  was  startling.  "  Oh,  Paul,  quick ! 
quick !  Haven't  you  your  flask  with  you?  " 

Mrs.  Purdon  informed  me  in  a  barely  audible  whisper, 
"In  the  corner  cupboard  at  the  head  of  the  stairs,"  and 


FLINT  AND  FIRE  115 

I  flew  down  the  hallway.  I  returned  with  a  bottle,  evi 
dently  of  great  age.  There  was  only  a  little  brandy  in 
the  bottom,  but  it  whipped  up  a  faint  color  into  the  sick 
woman's  lips. 

As  I  was  bending  over  her  and  Paul  was  thrusting 
open  the  shutters,  letting  in  a  flood  of  sunshine  and  flecky 
leaf-shadows,  a  firm,  rapid  step  came  down  the  hall,  and 
a  vigorous  woman,  with  a  tanned  face  and  a  clean,  faded 
gingham  dress,  stopped  short  in  the  doorway  with  an  ex 
pression  of  stupefaction. 

Mrs.  Purdon  put  me  on  one  side,  and  although  she  was 
physically  incapable  of  moving  her  body  by  a  hair's 
breadth,  she  gave  the  effect  of  having  risen  to  meet  the 
newcomer.  "  Well,  Emma,  here  I  am,"  she  said  in  a 
queer  voice,  with  involuntary  quavers  in  it.  As  she  went 
on  she  had  it  more  under  control,  although  in  the  course 
of  her  extraordinarily  succinct  speech  it  broke  and  failed 
her  occasionally.  When  it  did,  she  drew  in  her  breath 
with  an  audible,  painful  effort,  struggling  forward  stead 
ily  in  what  she  had  to  say.  "  You  see,  Emma,  it's  this 
way :  My  'Niram  and  your  Ev'leen  Ann  have  been  keeping 
company — ever  since  they  went  to  school  together — you 
know  that's  well  as  I  do,  for  all  we  let  on  we  didn't,  only 
I  didn't  know  till  just  now  how  hard  they  took  it.  They 
can't  get  married  because  'Niram  can't  keep  even,  let 
alone  get  ahead  any,  because  I  cost  so  much  bein'  sick, 
and  the  doctor  says  I  may  live  for  years  this  way,  same's 
Aunt  Hettie  did.  An'  'Niram  is  thirty-one,  an'  Ev'leen 
Ann  is  twenty-eight,  an'  they've  had  'bout's  much'  waitin' 
as  is  good  for  folks  that  set  such  store  by  each  other. 
I've  thought  of  every  way  out  of  it — and  there  ain't  any. 
The  Lord  knows  I  don't  enjoy  livin'  any,  not  so's  to 


ii6  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

notice  the  enjoyment,  and  I'd  thought  of  cutting  my  throat 
like  Uncle  Lish,  but  that'd  make  'Niram  and  Ev'leen  Ann 
feel  so — to  think  why  I'd  done  it;  they'd  never  take  the 
comfort  they'd  ought  in  bein'  married;  so  that  won't  do. 
There's  only  one  thing  to  do.  I  guess  you'll  have  to  take 
care  of  me  till  the  Lord  calls  me.  Maybe  I  won't  last 
so  long  as  the  doctor  thinks." 

When  she  finished,  I  felt  my  ears  ringing  in  the  silence. 
She  had  walked  to  the  sacrificial  altar  with  so  steady  a 
step,  and  laid  upon  it  her  precious  all  with  so  gallant  a 
front  of  quiet  resolution,  that  for  an  instant  I  failed  to 
take  in  the  sublimity  of  her  self-immolation.  Mrs.  Pur- 
don  asking  for  charity !  And  asking  the  one  woman  who 
had  most  reason  to  refuse  it  to  her. 

Paul  looked  at  me  miserably,  the  craven  desire  to  es 
cape  a  scene  written  all  over  him.  "  Wouldn't  we  better 
be  going,  Mrs.  Purdon  ? "  I  said  uneasily.  I  had  not 
ventured  to  look  at  the  woman  in  the  doorway. 

Mrs.  Purdon  motioned  me  to  remain,  with  an  imperious 
gesture  whose  fierceness  showed  the  tumult  underlying 
her  brave  front.  "No;  I  want  you  should  stay.  I  want 
you  should  hear  what  I  say,  so's  you  can  tell  folks,  if  you 
have  to.  Now,  look  here,  Emma,"  she  went  on  to'  the 
other,  still  obstinately  silent ;  "  you  must  look  at  it  the 
way  'tis.  We're  neither  of  us  any  good  to  anybody,  the 
way  we  are — and  I'm  dreadfully  in  the  way  of  the  only 
two  folks  we  care  a  pin  about — either  of  us.  You've 
got  plenty  to  do  with,  and  nothing  to  spend  it  on.  I  can't 
get  myself  out  of  their  way  by  dying  without  going 

against  what's  Scripture  and  proper,  but "  Her 

steely  calm  broke.  She  burst  out  in  a  screaming, 
hysterical  voice :  "  You've  just  got  to,  Emma  Hulett ! 


FLINT  AND  FIRE  117 

You've  just  got  to!  If  you  don't,  I  won't  never  go 
back  to  'Niram's  house !  I'll  lie  in  the  ditch  by  the  road 
side  till  the  poor-master  comes  to  git  me — and  I'll  tell 
everybody  that  it's  because  my  own  twin  sister,  with  a 
house  and  a  farm  and  money  in  the  bank,  turned  me  out 

to  starve "    A  fearful  spasm  cut  her  short.    She  lay 

twisted  and  limp,  the  whites  of  her  eyes  showing  between 
the  lids. 

"  Good  God,  she's  gone ! "  cried  Paul,  running  to  the 
bed. 

,  I  was  aware  that  the  woman  in  the  doorway  had  re- 
,laxed  her  frozen  immobility  and  was  between  Paul  and 
me  as  we  rubbed  the  thin,  icy  hands  and  forced  brandy 
between  the  flaccid  lips.  We  all  three  thought  her  dead 
or  dying,  and  labored  over  her  with  the  frightened  thank 
fulness  for  one  another's  living  presence  which  always 
marks  that  dreadful  moment.  But  even  as  we  fanned  and 
rubbed,  and  cried  out  to  one  another  to  open  the  win 
dows  and  to  bring  water,  the  blue  lips  moved  to  a  ghostly 
whisper :  "  Em,  listen—  The  old  woman  went  back  to 

the  nickname  of  their  common  youth.  "  Em — your  Ev'- 
leen  Ann — tried  to  drown  herself — in  the  Mill  Brook  last 

night  .  .  .  That's  what  decided  me — to "    And  then 

we  were  plunged  into  another  desperate  struggle  with 
Death  for  the  possession  of  the  battered  old  habitation  of 
the  dauntless  soul  before  us. 

"  Isn't  there  any  hot  water  in  the  house?  "  cried  Paul, 
and  "  Yes,  yes;  a  tea-kettle  on  the  stove!  "  answered  the 
woman  who  labored  with  us.  Paul,  divining  that  she 
meant  the  kitchen,  fled  down-stairs.  I  stole  a  look  at 
Emma  Hulett's  face  as  she  bent  over  the  sister  she  had 
not  seen  in  thirty  years,  and  I  knew  that  Mrs.  Purdon's 


n8  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

battle  was  won.  It  even  seemed  that  she  had  won  another 
skirmish  in  her  never-ending  war  with  death,  for  a  little 
warmth  began  to  come  back  into  her  hands. 

When  Paul  returned  with  the  tea-kettle,  and  a  hot- 
water  bottle  had  been  filled,  the  owner  of  the  house 
straightened  herself,  assumed  her  rightful  position  as 
mistress  of  the  situation,  and  began  to  issue  commands. 
'  You  git  right  in  the  automobile,  and  go  git  the  doctor," 
she  told  Paul.  "  That'll  be  the  quickest.  She's  better 
now,  and  your  wife  and  I  can  keep  her  goin'  till  the 
doctor  gits  here." 

As  Paul  left  the  room  she  snatched  something  white 
from  a  bureau-drawer,  stripped  the  worn,  patched  old 
cotton  nightgown  from  the  skeleton-like  body,  and, 
handling  the  invalid  with  a  strong,  sure  touch,  slipped  on 
a  soft,  woolly  outing-flannel  wrapper  with  a  curious  trim 
ming  of  zigzag  braid  down  the  front.  Mrs.  Purdon 
opened  her  eyes  very  slightly,  but  shut  them  again  at 
her  sister's  quick  command,  "  You  lay  still,  Em'line,  and 
drink  some  of  this  brandy."  She  obeyed  without  com 
ment,  but  after  a  pause  she  opened  her  eyes  again  and 
looked  down  at  the  new  garment  which  clad  her.  She 
had  that  moment  turned  back  from  the  door  of  death,  but 
her  first  breath  was  used  to  set  the  scene  for  a  return  to 
a  decent  decorum. 

'  You're  still  a  great  hand  for  rick-rack  work,  Em,  I 
see,"  she  murmured  in  a  faint  whisper.  "  Do  you  re 
member  how  surprised  Aunt  Su  was  when  you  made  up 
a  pattern  ?  " 

"  Well,  I  hadn't  thought  of  it  for  quite  some  time," 
returned  Miss  Hulett,  in  exactly  the  same  tone  of  every 
day  remark.  As  she  spoke  she  slipped  her  arm  under  the 


FLINT  AND  FIRE  119 

other's  head  and  poked  the  pillow  up  to  a  more  comfort 
able  shape.  "  Now  you  lay  perfectly  still,"  she  com 
manded  in  the  hectoring  tone  of  the  born  nurse;  "  I'm 
goin'  to  run  down  and  make  you  up  a  good  hot  cup  of 
sassafras  tea." 

I  followed  her  down  into  the  kitchen  and  was  met 
by  the  same  refusal  to  be  melodramatic  which  I  had  en 
countered  in  Ev'leen  Ann.  I  was  most  anxious  to  know 
what  version  of  my  extraordinary  morning  I  was  to  give 
out  to  the  world,  but  hung  silent,  positively  abashed  by 
the  cool  casualness  of  the  other  woman  as  she  mixed 

her  brew.  Finally,  "  Shall  I  tell  'Niram What  shall 

I  say  to  Ev'leen  Ann?  If  anybody  asks  me "  I 

brought  out  with  clumsy  hesitation. 

At  the  realization  that  her  reserve  and  family  pride 
were  wholly  at  the  mercy  of  any  report  I  might  choose 
to  give,  even  my  iron  hostess  faltered.  She  stopped  short 
in  the  middle  of  the  floor,  looked  at  me  silently,  piteously, 
and  found  no  word. 

I  hastened  to  assure  her  that  I  would  attempt  no  hate 
ful  picturesqueness  of  narration.  "  Suppose  I  just  say 
that  you  were  rather  lonely  here,  now  that  Ev'leen  Ann 
has  left  you,  and  that  you  thought  it  would  be  nice  to 
have  your  sister  come  to  stay  with  you,  so  that  'Niram 
and  Ev'leen  Ann  can  be  married?" 

Emma  Hulett  breathed  again.  She  walked  toward  the 
stairs  with  the  steaming  cup  in  her  hand.  Over  her 
shoulder  she  remarked,  "  Well,  yes,  ma'am ;  that  would 
be  as  good  a  way  to  put  it  as  any,  I  guess." 

'Niram  and  Ev'leen  Ann  were  standing  up  to  be  mar 
ried.  They  looked  very  stiff  and  self-conscious,  and  Ev'- 


120  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

leen  Ann  was  very  pale.  'Niram's  big  hands,  bent  in  the 
crook  of  a  man  who  handles  tools,  hung  down  by  his 
new  black  trousers.  Ev'leen  Ann's  strong  fingers  stood 
out  stiffly  from  one  another.  They  looked  hard  at  the 
minister  and  repeated  after  him  in  low  and  meaningless 
tones  the  solemn  and  touching  words  of  the  marriage 
service.  Back  of  them  stood  the  wedding  company,  in 
freshly  washed  and  ironed  white  dresses,  new  straw  hats, 
and  black  suits  smelling  of  camphor.  In  the  background, 
among  the  other  elders,  stood  Paul  and  Horace  and  I — 
my  husband  and  I  hand  in  hand ;  Horace  twiddling  the 
black  ribbon  which  holds  his  watch,  and  looking  bored. 
Through  the  open  windows  into  the  stuffiness  of  the  best 
room  came  an  echo  of  the  deep  organ  note  of  midsum 
mer. 

"  Whom  God  hath  joined  together — "  said  the  minister, 
and  the  epitome  of  humanity  which  filled  the  room  held 
its  breath — the  old  with  a  wonder  upon  their  life-scarred 
faces,  the  young  half  frightened  to  feel  the  stir  of  the 
great  wings  soaring  so  near  them. 

Then  it  was  all  over.  'Niram  and  Ev'leen  Ann  were 
married,  and  the  rest  of  us  were  bustling  about  to  serve 
the  hot  biscuit  and  coffee  and  chicken  salad,  and  to  dish 
up  the  ice-cream.  Afterward  there  were  no  citified  re 
finements  of  cramming  rice  down  the  necks  of  the  de 
parting  pair  or  tying  placards  to  the  carriage  in  which 
they  went  away.  Some  of  the  men  went  out  to  the  barn 
and  hitched  up  for  'Niram,  and  we  all  went  down  to  the 
gate  to  see  them  drive  off.  They  might  have  been  going 
for  one  of  their  Sunday  afternoon  "  buggy-rides"  except 
for  the  wet  eyes  of  the  foolish  women  and  girls  who 
stood  waving  their  hands  in  answer  to  the  flutter  of  Ev'- 


FLINT  AND  FIRE  121 

leen  Ann's  handkerchief  as  the  carnage  went  down  the 
hill. 

We  had  nothing  to  say  to  one  another  after  they  left, 
and  began  soberly  to  disperse  to  our  respective  vehicles. 
But  as  I  was  getting  into  our  car  a  new  thought  suddenly 
struck  me. 

"  Why,"  I  cried,  "  I  never  thought  of  it  before !  How 
ever  in  the  world  did  old  Mrs.  Purdon  know  about  Ev' 
leen  Ann — that  night?" 

Horace  was  pulling  at  the  door,  which  was  badly  ad 
justed  and  shut  hard.  He  closed  it  with  a  vicious  slam. 
"  I  told  her,"  he  said  crossly. 


A  SAINT'S  HOURS 

In  the  still  cold  before  the  sun 
HER  LAUDS  Her  brothers  and  her  sisters  small 

She  woke,  and  washed  and  dressed  each  one. 

And  through  the  morning  hours  all, 
PRIME  Singing  above  her  broom,  she  stood 

And  swept  the  house  from  hall  to  hall. 

At  noon  she  ran  with  tidings  good 
TERCE  Across  the  field  and  down  the  lane 

To  share  them  with  the  neighborhood. 

Four  miles  she  walked  and  home  again, 
SEXT  To  sit  through  half  the  afternoon 

And  hear  a  feeble  crone  complain; 

But  when  she  saw  the  frosty  moon 
NONES  And  lakes  of  shadow  on  the  hill 

Her  maiden  dreams  grew  bright  as  noon. 

She  threw  her  pitying  apron  frill 
VESPERS        Over  a  little  trembling  mouse 

When  the  sleek  cat  yawned  on  the  sill, 

In  the  late  hours  and  drowsy  house. 
COMPLINE    At  last,  too  tired,  beside  her  bed 

She  fell  asleep.  ...  her  prayers  half  said. 


IN  MEMORY  OF  L.  H.  W. 

HE  began  life  characteristically,  depreciated  and  dis 
paraged.  When  he  was  a  white,  thin,  big-headed  baby, 
his  mother,  stripping  the  suds  from  her  lean  arms,  used 
to  inveigh  to  her  neighbors  against  his  existence. 
"  Wa'n't  it  just  like  that  do-less  Lem  Warren,  not  even 
to  leave  me  foot- free  when  he  died,  but  a  baby 
coming! " 

"  Do-less,"  in  the  language  of  our  valley,  means  a  com 
bination  of  shiftless  and  impractical,  particularly  to  be 
scorned. 

Later,  as  he  began  to  have  some  resemblance  to  the 
appearance  he  was  to  wear  throughout  life,  her  resent 
ment  at  her  marriage,  which  she  considered  the  one  mis 
take  of  her  life,  kept  pace  with  his  growth.  "  Look  at 
him !  "  she  cried  to  anyone  who  would  listen.  "  Ain't 
that  Warren,  all  over?  Did  any  of  my  folks  ever  look  so 
like  a  born  fool?  Shut  your  mouth,  for  the  Lord's 
sake,  Lem,  and  maybe  you  won't  scare  folks  quite  so 
much." 

Lem  had  a  foolish,  apologetic  grin  with  which  he  al 
ways  used  to  respond  to  these  personalities,  hanging  his 
head  to  one  side  and  opening  and  shutting  his  big  hands 
nervously. 

The  tumble-down,  two-roomed  house  in  which  the 
Warrens  lived  was  across  the  road  from  the  schoolhouse, 
and  Mrs.  Warren's  voice  was  penetrating.  Lem  was  ac- 

123 


124  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

cepted  throughout  his  school-life  at  the  home  estimate. 
The  ugly,  overgrown  boy,  clad  in  cast-off,  misfit  clothing, 
was  allowed  to  play  with  the  other  children  only  on  con 
dition  that  he  perform  all  the  hard,  uninteresting  parts 
of  any  game.  Inside  the  schoolroom  it  was  the  same. 
He  never  learned  to  shut  his  mouth,  and  his  speech  was 
always  halting  and  indistinct,  so  that  he  not  only  did  not 
recite  well  in  class,  but  was  never  in  one  of  the  school 
entertainments.  He  chopped  the  wood  and  brought  it 
in,  swept  the  floor  and  made  the  fires,  and  then  listened 
in  grinning,  silent  admiration  while  the  others,  arrayed 
in  their  best,  spoke  pieces  and  sang  songs. 

He  was  not  "  smart  at  his  books  "  and  indeed  did  not 
learn  even  to  read  very  fluently.  This  may  have  been 
partly  because  the  only  books  he  ever  saw  were  old  school- 
books,  the  use  of  which  was  given  him  free  on  account  of 
his  mother's  poverty.  He  was  not  allowed,  of  course, 
to  take  them  from  the  schoolroom.  But  if  he  was  not 
good  at  book-learning  he  was  not  without  accomplish 
ments.  He  early  grew  large  for  his  age,  and  strong  from 
much  chopping  of  wood  and  drawing  of  water  for  his 
mother's  washings,  and  he  was  the  best  swimmer  of  all 
those  who  bathed  in  the  cold,  swift  mountain  stream 
which  rushes  near  the  schoolhouse.  The  chief  conse 
quence  of  this  expertness  was  that  in  the  summer  he  was 
forced  to  teach  each  succeeding  generation  of  little  boys 
to  swim  and  dive.  They  tyrannized  over  him  unmerci 
fully — as,  in  fact,  everyone  did. 

Nothing  made  his  mother  more  furious  than  such  an 
exhibition  of  what  she  called  "  Lem's  meachin'ness." 
"Ain't  you  got  no  stand-up  in  ye?"  she  was  wont  to  ex 
hort  him  angrily.  "  If  you  don't  look  out  for  yourself 


IN  MEMORY  OF  L.  H.  W.  125 

in  this  world,  you  needn't  think  anybody  else  is 
gunto!" 

The  instructions  in  ethics  he  received  at  her  hands 
were  the  only  ones  he  ever  knew,  for,  up  to  his  four 
teenth  year,  he  never  had  clothes  respectable  enough  to 
wear  to  church,  and  after  that  he  had  other  things  to 
think  of.  Fourteen  years  is  what  we  call  in  our  State 
"  over  school  age."  It  was  a  date  to  which  Mrs.  Warren 
had  looked  forward  with  eagerness.  After  that,  the 
long,  unprofitable  months  of  enforced  schooling  would 
be  over,  Lem  would  be  earning  steady  wages,  and  she 
could  sit  back  and  "  live  decent." 

It  seemed  to  her  more  than  she  could  bear,  that,  al 
most  upon  her  son's  birthday,  she  was  stricken  down  with 
paralysis.  It  was  the  first  calamity  for  which  she  could 
not  hold  her  marriage  responsible,  and  her  bitterness 
thereupon  extended  itself  to  fate  in  general.  She  cannot 
have  been  a  cheerful  house-mate  during  the  next  ten  years, 
when  Lem  was  growing  silently  to  manhood. 

He  was  in  demand  as  "  help  "  on  the  farms  about  him, 
on  account  of  his  great  strength  and  faithfulness,  al 
though  the  farmers  found  him  exasperatingly  slow  and, 
when  it  was  a  question  of  animals,  not  always  sure  to 
obey  orders.  He  could  be  trusted  to  be  kind  to  horses, 
unlike  most  hired  men  we  get  nowadays,  but  he  never 
learned  "  how  to  get  the  work  out  of  their  hide."  It  was 
his  way,  on  a  steep  hill  with  a  heavy  load,  to  lay  down  the 
whip,  get  out,  and  put  his  own  powerful  shoulder  to  the 
wheel.  If  this  failed,  he  unloaded  part  of  the  logs  and 
made  two  trips  of  it.  The  uncertainty  of  his  progress 
can  be  imagined.  The  busy  and  impatient  farmer  and 
sawyer  at  the  opposite  ends  of  his  route  were  driven  to 


126  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

exhaust  their  entire  vocabulary  of  objurgation  on  him. 
He  was,  they  used  to  inform  him  in  conclusion,  "the 
most  do-less  critter  the  Lord  ever  made !  " 

He  was  better  with  cows  and  sheep — "  feller-feel- 
in,'T  his  mother  said  scornfully,  watching  him  feed  a 
sick  ewe — and  he  had  here,  even  in  comparison  with 
his  fellow-men,  a  fair  degree  of  success.  It  was  in 
deed  the  foundation  of  what  material  prosperity  he  ever 
enjoyed.  A  farmer,  short  of  cash,  paid  him  one  year 
with  three  or  four  ewes  and  a  ram.  He  worked  for  an 
other  farmer  to  pay  for  the  rent  of  a  pasture  and  had, 
that  first  year,  as  everybody  admitted,  almighty  good  luck 
with  them.  There  were  several  twin  lambs  born  that 
spring  and  everyone  lived.  Lem  used  to  make  frequent 
night  visits  during  lambing-time  to  the  pasture  to  make 
sure  that  all  was  well. 

I  remember  as  a  little  girl  starting  back  from  some 
village  festivity  late  one  spring  night  and  seeing  a  lan 
tern  twinkle  far  up  on  the  mountainside.  "  Lem  Warren 
out  fussin'  with  his  sheep,"  some  one  of  my  elders  re 
marked.  Later,  as  we  were  almost  home,  we  saw  the 
lantern  on  the  road  ahead  of  us  and  stopped  the  horses, 
country- fashion,  for  an  interchange  of  salutation.  Look 
ing  out  from  under  the  shawl  in  which  I  was  wrapped,  I 
saw  his  tall  figure  stooping  over  something  held  under 
his  coat.  The  lantern  lighted  his  weather-beaten  face 
and  the  expression  of  his  eyes  as  he  looked  down  at  the 
little  white  head  against  his  breast. 

lt  You're  foolish,  Lem,"  said  my  uncle.  "  The  ewe 
won't  own  it  if  you  take  it  away  so  long  the  first  night." 

"  I — I — know,"  stuttered  Lem,  bringing  out  the  words 
with  his  usual  difficulty;  "  but  it's  mortal  cold  up  on  the 


IN  MEMORY  OF  L.  H.  W.  127 

mounting    for   little    fellers!    I'll    bring   him   up   as   a 
cosset." 

The  incident  reminded  me  vaguely  of  something  I  had 
read  about,  and  it  has  remained  in  my  memory. 

After  we  drove  on  I  remember  that  there  were  laugh 
ing  speculations  about  what  language  old  Ma'am  War 
ren  would  use  at  having  another  cosset  brought  to  the 
house.  Not  that  it  could  make  any  more  work  for  her, 
since  Lem  did  all  that  was  done  about  the  housekeeping. 
Chained  to  her  chair  by  her  paralyzed  legs,  as  she  was, 
she  could  accomplish  nothing  more  than  to  sit  and  cavil 
at  the  management  of  the  universe  all  day,  until  Lem 
came  home,  gave  her  her  supper,  and  put  her  to  bed. 

Badly  run  as  she  thought  the  world,  for  a  time  it  was 
more  favorable  to  her  material  prosperity  than  she  had 
ever  known  it.  Lem's  flock  of  sheep  grew  and  thrived. 
For  years  nobody  in  our  valley  has  tried  to  do  much 
with  sheep  because  of  dogs,  and  all  Lem's  neighbors  told 
him  that  some  fine  morning  he  would  find  his  flock  torn 
and  dismembered.  They  even  pointed  out  the  particular 
big  collie  dog  who  would  most  likely  go  "  sheep-mad/' 
Lem's  heavy  face  drew  into  anxious,  grotesque  wrinkles 
at  this  kind  of  talk,  and  he  visited  the  uplying  pasture 
more  and  more  frequently. 

One  morning,  just  before  dawn,  he  came,  pale  and 
shamefaced,  to  the  house  of  the  owner  of  the  collie.  The 
family,  roused  from  bed  by  his  knocking,  made  out  from 
his  speech,  more  incoherent  than  usual,  that  he  was  beg 
ging  their  pardon  for  having  killed  their  dog.  "  I  saw 
wh-where  he'd  bit  th-the  throats  out  of  two  ewes  that 
w-was  due  to  lamb  in  a  few  days  and  I  guess  I — I — I 
must  ha'  gone  kind  o'  crazy.  They  was  ones  I  liked 


128  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

special.     I'd  brought  'em  up  myself.     They — they  was 
all  over  blood,  you  know." 

They  peered  at  him  in  the  gray  light,  half-afraid  of 
the  tall  apparition.  "  How  could  you  kill  a  great  big 
dog  like  Jack?  "  They  asked  wonderingly. 

In  answer  he  held  out  his  great  hands  and  his  huge 
corded  arms,  red  with  blood  up  to  the  elbow.  "  I  heard 
him  worrying  another  sheep  and  I — I  just — killed 
him." 

One  of  the  children  now  cried  out:  "But  I  shu; 
Jackie  up  in  the  woodshed  last  night ! " 

Someone  ran  to  open  the  door  and  the  collie  bounded 
out.  Lem  turned  white  in  thankfulness.  "  I'm  mortal 
glad,"  he  stammered.  "  I  felt  awful  bad — afterward. 
I  knew  your  young  ones  thought  a  sight  of  Jack." 

"  But  what  dog  did  you  kill  ?  "  they  asked. 

Some  of  the  men  went  back  up  on  the  mountain  with 
him  and  found,  torn  in  pieces  and  scattered  wide  in 
bloody  fragments,  as  if  destroyed  by  some  great  reveng 
ing  beast  of  prey,  the  body  of  a  big  gray  wolf.  Once  in 
a  while  one  wanders  over  the  line  from  the  Canada  forests 
and  comes  down  into  our  woods,  following  the  deer. 

The  hard-headed  farmers  who  looked  on  that  savage 
scene  drew  back  from  the  shambling  man  beside  them 
in  the  only  impulse  of  respect  they  ever  felt  for  him. 
It  was  the  one  act  of  his  life  to  secure  the  admiration  of 
his  fellow-men;  it  was  an  action  of  which  he  himself 
always  spoke  in  horror  and  shame. 

Certainly  his  marriage  aroused  no  admiration.  It  was 
universally  regarded  as  a  most  addle-pated,  imbecile  af 
fair  from  beginning  to  end.  One  of  the  girls  who  worked 
at  the  hotel  in  the  village  "  got  into  trouble,"  as  our 


IN  MEMORY  OF  L.  H.  W.  129 

vernacular  runs,  and  as  she  came  originally  from  our  dis 
trict  and  had  gone  to  school  there,  everyone  knew  her 
and  was  talking  about  the  scandal.  Old  Ma'am  Warren 
was  of  the  opinion,  spiritedly  expressed,  that  "  Lottie 
was  a  fool  not  to  make  that  drummer  marry  her.  She 
could  have,  if  she'd  gone  the  right  way  to  work."  But 
the  drummer  remained  persistently  absent. 

One  evening  Lem,  starting  for  his  sheep-pasture  for 
his  last  look  for  the  night,  heard  someone  crying  down 
by  the  river  and  then,  as  he  paused  to  listen,  heard  it  no 
more.  He  jumped  from  the  bridge  without  stopping  to 
set  down  his  lantern,  knowing  well  the  swiftness  of  the 
water,  and  caught  the  poor  cowardly  thing  as  she  came, 
struggling  and  gasping,  down  with  the  current.  He  took 
her  home  and  gave  her  dry  clothes  of  his  mother's.  Then 
leaving  the  scared  and  repentant  child  by  his  hearth,  he 
set  out  on  foot  for  the  minister's  house  and  dragged  him 
back  over  the  rough  country  roads. 

When  Ma'am  Warren  awoke  the  next  morning,  Lem 
did  not  instantly  answer  her  imperious  call,  as  he  had 
done  for  so  many  years.  Instead,  a  red-eyed  girl  in  one 
of  Mrs.  Warren's  own  nightgowns  came  to  the  door  and 
said  shrinkingly:  "Lem  slept  in  the  barn  last  night. 
He  give  his  bed  to  me;  but  he'll  be  in  soon.  I  see  him 
fussin'  around  with  the  cow." 

Ma'am  Warren  stared,  transfixed  with  a  premonition 
of  irremediable  evil.  "What  you  doin'  here?"  she  de 
manded,  her  voice  devoid  of  expression  through  stupe 
faction. 

The  girl  held  down  her  head.  "  Lem  and  I  were  mar 
ried  last  night,"  she  said. 

Then  Mrs.  Warren  found  her  voice. 


130  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

When  Lem  came  in  it  was  to  a  scene  of  the  furious 
wrangling  which  was  henceforth  to  fill  his  house. 

...   to  saddle  himself  with  such  trash  as  you!  " 
his  mother  was  saying  ragingly. 

His  wife  answered  in  kind,  her  vanity  stung  beyond 
endurance.  "  Well,  you  can  be  sure  he'd  never  have  got 
him  a  wife  any  other  way!  Nobody  but  a  girl  hard 
put  to  it  would  take  up  with  a  drivel-headed  fool  like 
Lem  Warren !  " 

And  then  the  bridegroom  appeared  at  the  door  and 
both  women  turned  their  attention  to  him. 

When  the  baby  was  born,  Lottie  was  very  sick.  Lem 
took  care  of  his  mother,  his  wife,  and  the  new  baby  for 
weeks  and  weeks.  It  was  at  lambing-time,  and  his  flock 
suffered  from  lack  of  attention,  although  as  much  as  he 
dared  he  left  his  sick  women  and  tended  his  ewes.  He 
ran  in  debt,  too,  to  the  grocery-stores,  for  he  could  work 
very  little  and  earned  almost  nothing.  Of  course  the 
neighbors  helped  out,  but  it  was  no  cheerful  morning's 
work  to  care  for  the  vitriolic  old  woman,  and  Lottie  was 
too  sick  for  anyone  but  Lem  to  handle.  We  did  pass 
the  baby  around  from  house  to  house  during  the  worst 
of  his  siege,  to  keep  her  off  Lem's  hands;  but  when  Lottie 
began  to  get  better  it  was  haying-time;  everybody  was 
more  than  busy,  and  the  baby  was  sent  back. 

Lottie  lingered  in  semi-invalidism  for  about  a  year  and 
then  died,  Lem  holding  her  hand  in  his.  She  tried  to 
say  something  to  him  that  last  night,  so  the  neighbors 
who  were  there  reported,  but  her  breath  failed  her  and 
she  could  only  lie  staring  at  him  from  eyes  that  seemed 
already  to  look  from  the  other  side  of  the  grave. 

He  was  heavily  in  debt  when  he  was  thus  left  with  a 


IN  MEMORY  OF  L.  H.  W.  131 

year-old  child  not  his  own,  but  he  gave  Lottie  a  decent 
funeral  and  put  up  over  her  grave  a  stone  stating  that 
she  was  "  Charlotte,  loved  wife  of  Lemuel  Warren," 
and  that  she  died  in  the  eighteenth  year  of  her  life.  He 
used  to  take  the  little  girl  and  <put  flowers  on  the  grave,  I 
remember. 

Then  he  went  to  work  again.  His  sandy  hair  was  al 
ready  streaked  with  gray,  though  he  was  but  thirty.  The 
doctor  said  the  reason  for  this  phenomenon  was  the  great 
strain  of  his  year  of  nursing;  and  indeed  throughout  that 
period  of  his  life  no  one  knew  when  he  slept,  if  ever.  He 
was  always  up  and  dressed  when  anyone  else  was,  and 
late  at  night  we  could  look  across  and  see  his  light  still 
burning  and  know  that  he  was  rubbing  Lottie's  back  or 
feeding  little  Susie. 

All  that  was  changed  now,  of  course.  Susie  was  a 
strong,  healthy  child  who  slept  all  through  the  night  in 
her  little  crib  by  her  stepfather's  corded  bed,  and  in  the 
daytime  went  everywhere  he  did.  Wherever  he  "  worked 
out  "  he  used  to  give  her  her  nap  wrapped  in  a  horse 
blanket  on  the  hay  in  the  barn;  and  he  carried  her  in  a 
sling  of  his  own  contrivance  up  to  his  sheep-pasture.  Old 
Ma'am  Warren  disliked  the  pretty,  laughing  child  so 
bitterly  that  he  was  loath  to  leave  her  at  home;  but  when 
he  was  there  with  her,  for  the  first  time  he  asserted  him 
self  against  his  mother,  bidding  her,  when  she  began  to 
berate  the  child's  parentage,  to  "  be  still !  "  with  so  strange 
and  unexpected  an  accent  of  authority  that  she  was  quite 
frightened. 

Susie  was  very  fond  of  her  stepfather  at  first,  but 
when  she  came  of  school  age,  mixed  more  with  the  other 
children,  and  heard  laughing,  contemptuous  remarks 


132  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

about  him,  the  frank  and  devouring  egotism  of  childhood 
made  her  ashamed  of  her  affection,  ashamed  of  him 
with  his  uncouth  gait,  his  mouth  always  sagging  open, 
his  stammering,  ignorant  speech,  which  the  other  children 
amused  themselves  by  mocking.  Though  he  was  prosper 
ing  again  with  his  sheep,  owned  the  pasture  and  his 
house  now,  and  had  even  built  on  another  room  as  well 
as  repairing  the  older  part,  he  spent  little  on  his  own 
adornment.  It  all  went  for  pretty  clothes  for  Susie,  for 
better  food,  for  books  and  pictures,  for  tickets  for  Susie 
to  go  to  the  circus  and  the  county  fair.  Susie  knew  this 
and  loved  him  by  stealth  for  it,  but  the  intolerably  sen 
sitive  vanity  of  her  twelve  years  made  her  wretched  to  be 
seen  in  public  with  him. 

Divining  this,  he  ceased  going  with  her  to  school-pic 
nics  and  Sunday-school  parties,  where  he  had  been  a  most 
useful  pack-animal,  and,  dressing  her  in  her  best  with 
his  big  calloused  hands,  watched  her  from  the  window 
join  a  group  of  the  other  children.  His  mother  pre 
dicted  savagely  that  his  "  spoilin'  on  that  bad-blooded 
young  one  would  bring  her  to  no  good  end,"  and  when, 
at  fifteen,  Susie  began  to  grow  very  pretty  and  saucy 
and  willful  and  to  have  beaux  come  to  see  her,  the  old 
woman  exulted  openly  over  Lem's  helpless  anxiety. 

He  was  quite  gray  now,  although  not  yet  forty-five,  and 
so  stooped  that  he  passed  for  an  old  man.  He  owned  a 
little  farm,  his  flock  of  sheep  was  the  largest  in  the  town 
ship,  and  Susie  was  expected  to  make  a  good  marriage 
in  spite  of  her  antecedents. 

And  then  Frank  Gridley's  oldest  son,  Ed,  came  back 
from  business  college  with  store  clothes  and  city  hats 
and  polished  tan  shoes,  and  began  idling  about,  calling  on 


IN  MEMORY  OF  L.  H.  W.  133 

the  girls.  From  the  first,  he  and  Susie  ran  together  like 
two  drops  of  water.  Bronson  Perkins,  a  cousin  of  mine, 
a  big,  silent,  ruminative  lad  who  had  long  hung  about 
Susie,  stood  no  show  at  all.  One  night  in  county-fair 
week,  Susie,  who  had  gone  to  the  fair  with  a  crowd  of 
girl  friends,  was  not  at  home  at  ten  o'clock.  Lem,  sitting 
in  his  doorway  and  watching  the  clock,  heard  the  ap 
proach  of  the  laughing,  singing  straw-ride  in  which  she 
had  gone,  with  a  long  breath  of  relief;  but  the  big  hay- 
wagon  did  not  stop  at  his  gate. 

He  called  after  it  in  a  harsh  voice  and  was  told  that 
"  Ed  Gridley  and  she  went  off  to  the  hotel  to  get  sup 
per.  He  said  he'd  bring  her  home  later." 

Lem  went  out  to  the  barn,  hitched  up  the  faster  of 
his  two  heavy  plow-horses  and  drove  from  his  house 
to  Woodville,  eight  miles  and  up-hill,  in  forty-five  min 
utes.  When  he  went  into  the  hotel,  the  clerk  told  him 
that  the  two  he  sought  had  had  supper  served  in  a  pri 
vate  room.  Lem  ascertained  which  room  and  broke  the 
door  in  with  one  heave  of  his  shoulders.  Susie  sprang 
up  from  the  disordered  supper-table  and  ran  to  him  like 
•a  frightened  child,  clinging  to  him  desperately  and  crying 
out  that  Ed  scared  her  so ! 

"  It's  all  right  now,  Susie,"  he  said  gently,  not  looking 
at  the  man.  "  Poppa's  come  to  take  you  home." 

The  man  felt  his  dignity  wounded.  He  began  to  pro 
test  boisterously  and  to  declare  that  he  was  ready  to  marry 
the  girl — "now,  this  instant,  if  you  choose!" 

Lem  put  one  arm  about  Susie.  "  I  didn't  come  to 
make  you  marry  her.  I  come  to  keep  you  from  doin'  it," 
he  said,  speaking  clearly  for  once  in  his  life.  "  Susie 
shan't  marry  a  hound  that'd  do  this."  And  as  the  other 


134  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

advanced  threateningly  on  him,  he  struck  him  a  great 
blow  across  the  mouth  that  sent  him  unconscious  to  the 
ground. 

Then  Lem  went  out,  paid  for  the  broken  lock,  and 
drove  home  with  Susie  behind  the  foundered  plow-horse. 

The  next  spring  her  engagement  to  Bronson  Perkins 
was  announced,  though  everybody  said  they  didn't  see 
what  use  it  was  for  folks  to  get  engaged  that  couldn't 
ever  get  married.  Mr.  Perkins,  Bronson's  father,  was 
daft,  not  enough  to  send  him  to  the  asylum,  but  so  that 
he  had  to  be  watched  all  the  time  to  keep  him  from  doing 
himself  a  hurt.  He  had  a  horrid  way,  I  remember,  of 
lighting  matches  and  holding  them  up  to  his  bared  arm 
until  the  smell  of  burning  flesh  went  sickeningly  through 
the  house  and  sent  someone  in  a  rush  to  him.  Of  course 
it  was  out  of  the  question  to  bring  a  young  bride  to 
such  a  home.  Apparently  there  were  years  of  waiting 
before  them,  and  Susie  was  made  of  no  stuff  to  endure 
a  long  engagement. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  were  married  that  fall,  as 
soon  as  Susie  could  get  her  things  ready.  Lem  took 
old  Mr.  Perkins  into  the  room  Susie  left  vacant. 

Twon't  be  much  more  trouble  taking  care  of  two  old 
people  than  one,"  he  explained  briefly. 

Ma'am  Warren's  comments  on  this  action  have  been 
embalmed  forever  in  the  delighted  memories  of  our  peo 
ple.  We  have  a  taste  for  picturesque  and  forceful  speech. 

From  that  time  we  always  saw  the  lunatic  and  the 
bent  shepherd  together.  The  older  man  grew  quieter 
under  Lem's  care  than  he  had  been  for  years,  and  if  he 
felt  one  of  his  insane  impulses  overtaking  him,  ran  tot- 
teringly  to  grasp  his  protector's  arm  until,  quaking  and 


IN  MEMORY  OF  L.  H.  W.  135 

shivering,  he  was  himself  again.  Lem  used  to  take  him 
up  to  the  sheep-pasture  for  the  day  sometimes.  He  liked 
it  up  there  himself,  he  said,  and  maybe  'twould  be  good 
for  Uncle  Hi.  He  often  reported  with  pride  that  the 
old  man  talked  as  sensible  as  anybody,  "  get  him  off 
where  it's  quiet."  Indeed,  when  Mr.  Perkins  died,  six 
years  later,  we  had  forgotten  that  he  was  anything  but 
a  little  queer,  and  he  had  known  many  happy,  lucid  hours 
with  his  grandchildren. 

Susie  and  Bronson  had  two  boys — sturdy,  hearty  chil 
dren,  in  whom  Lem  took  the  deepest,  shyest  pride.  He 
loved  to  take  them  off  into  the  woods  with  him  and  ex 
ulted  in  their  quick  intelligence  and  strong  little  bodies. 
Susie  got  into  the  way  of  letting  him  take  a  good  deal 
of  the  care  of  them. 

It  was  Lem  who  first  took  alarm  about  the  fall  that 
little  Frank  had,  down  the  cellar  stairs.  He  hurt  his 
spine  somehow — our  local  doctor  could  not  tell  exactly 
how — and  as  the  injury  only  made  him  limp  a  little,  no 
body  thought  much  about  it,  until  he  began  to  have 
difficulty  in  walking.  Then  Lem  sent  for  a  doctor  from 
Rutland  who,  as  soon  as  he  examined  the  child,  stuck 
out  his  lower  lip  and  rubbed  his  chin  ominously.  He 
pronounced  the  trouble  something  with  a  long  name  which 
none  of  us  had  ever  heard,  and  said  that  Frank  would 
be  a  hopeless  cripple  if  it  were  not  cured  soon.  There 
was,  he  said,  a  celebrated  doctor  from  Europe  now  travel 
ing  in  this  country  who  had  a  wonderful  new  treatment 
for  this  condition.  But  under  the  circumstances — he 
looked  about  the  plain  farm  sitting-room — he  supposed 
that  was  out  of  the  question. 

"What   did   the   doctor   from    foreign   parts   ask?" 


136  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

queried  Bronson,  and,  being  informed  of  some  of  the 
customary  prices  for  major  operations,  fell  back  hope 
less.  Susie,  her  pretty,  childish  face  drawn  and  blanched 
into  a  wan  beauty,  put  her  arms  about  her  sick  little  son 
and  looked  at  her  stepfather.  He  had  never  failed 
her. 

He  did  not  fail  her  now.  He  sold  the  land  he  had  ac 
cumulated  field  by  field;  he  sold  the  great  flock  of  sheep, 
every  one  of  which  he  could  call  by  name;  he  mortgaged 
the  house  over  the  protesting  head  of  his  now  bedridden 
mother;  he  sold  the  horse  and  cow,  and  the  very  sticks 
of  furniture  from  the  room  where  Susie  had  grown  up 
and  where  the  crazy  grandfather  of  Susie's  children  had 
known  a  peaceful  old  age  and  death.  Little  Frank  was 
taken  to  New  York  to  the  hospital  to  have  the  great  sur 
geon  operate  on  him — he  is  there  yet,  almost  completely 
recovered  and  nearly  ready  to  come  home. 

Back  in  Hillsboro,  Lem  now  began  life  all  over  again, 
hiring  out  humbly  to  his  neighbors  and  only  stipulating 
that  he  should  have  enough  free  time  to  take  care  of  his 
mother.  Three  weeks  ago  she  had  her  last  stroke  of 
paralysis  and,  after  lying  speechless  for  a  few  days,  passed 
away,  grim  to  the  last,  by  the  expression  in  her  fierce 
old  eyes. 

The  day  after  her  funeral  Lem  did  not  come  to  work 
as  he  was  expected.  We  went  over  to  his  house  and 
found,  to  our  consternation,  that  he  was  not  out  of  bed. 

"  Be  ye  sick,  Lem?  "  asked  my  uncle. 

He  looked  at  us  over  the  bedclothes  with  his  old  fool 
ish,  apologetic  smile.  "  Kind  o'  lazy,  I  guess/'  he  whis 
pered,  closing  his  eyes. 

The  doctor  was  put  out  by  the  irregularity  of  the  case. 


IN  MEMORY  OF  L.  H.  W.  137 

"  I  can't  make  out  anything  redly  the  trouble!  "  he  said. 
"  Only  the  wheels  don't  go  round  as  fast  as  they  ought. 
Call  it  failing  heart  action  if  you  want  a  label." 

The  wheels  ran  more  and  more  slowly  until  it  was  ap 
parent  to  all  of  us  that  before  long  they  would  stop  al 
together.  Susie  and  Bronson  were  in  New  York  with 
little  Frank,  so  that  Lem's  care  during  his  last  days  de 
volved  on  the  haphazard  services  of  the  neighbors.  He 
was  out  of  his  head  most  of  the  time,  though  never  vio 
lent,  and  all  through  the  long  nights  lay  flat  on  his  back, 
looking  at  the  ceiling  with  bright,  blank  eyes,  driving 
his  ox-team,  skidding  logs,  plowing  in  stony  ground 
and  remembering  to  favor  the  off-horse  whose  wind 
wasn't  good,  planting,  hoeing,  tending  his  sheep,  and 
teaching  obstinate  lambs  to  drink.  He  used  quaint,  coax 
ing  names  for  these,  such  as  a  mother  uses  for  her  baby. 
He  was  up  in  the  mountain-pasture  a  good  deal,  we 
gathered,  and  at  night,  from  his  constant  mention  of 
how  bright  the  stars  shone.  And  sometimes,  when  he 
was  in  evident  pain,  his  delusion  took  the  form  that 
Susie,  or  the  little  boys,  had  gone  up  with  him,  and  got 
lost  in  the  woods. 

I  was  on  duty  the  night  he  died.  We  thought  a  change 
was  near,  because  he  had  lain  silent  all  day,  and  we  hoped 
he  would  come  to  himself  when  he  awoke  from  this 
stupor.  Near  midnight  he  began  to  talk  again,  and  I 
could  not  make  out  at  first  whether  he  was  still  wander 
ing  or  not.  "  Hold  on  hard,  Uncle  Hi,"  I  heard  him 
whisper. 

A  spoon  fell  out  of  my  hand  and  clattered  against  a 
plate.  He  gave  a  great  start  and  tried  to  sit  up.  "  Yes, 
mother — coming !  "  he  called  hoarsely,  and  then  looked  at 


138  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

me  with  his  own  eyes.  "  I  must  ha'  forgot  about  mother's 
bein'  gone,"  he  apologized  sheepishly. 

I  took  advantage  of  this  lucid  interval  to  try  to  give 
him  some  medicine  the  doctor  had  left.  "  Take  a  swal 
low  of  this,"  I  said,  holding  the  glass  to  his  lips. 

"What's  it  for?"  he  asked. 

"  It's  a  heart  stimulant,"  I  explained.  "  The  doctor 
said  if  we  could  get  you  through  to-night  you  have  a 
good  chance." 

His  face  drew  together  in  grotesque  lines  of  anxiety. 
"Little  Frank  worse?" 

"  Oh,  no,  he's  doing  finely." 

"Susie  all  right?" 

"  Why,  yes,"  I  said  wonderingly. 

"  Nothing  the  matter  with  her  other  boy?  " 

"  Why,  no,  no,"  I  told  him.  "  Everybody's  all  right. 
Here,  just  take  this  down." 

He  turned  away  his  head  on  the  pillow  and  murmured 
something  I  did  not  catch.  When  I  asked  him  what  he 
said,  he  smiled  feebly  as  in  deprecation  of  his  well- 
known  ridiculous  ways.  "  I'm  just  as  much  obliged  to 
you,"  he  said,  "  but  if  everybody's  all  right,  I  guess  I 
won't  have  any  medicine."  He  looked  at  me  earnestly. 
"  I'm—I'm  real  tired,"  he  said. 

It  came  out  in  one  great  breath — apparently  his  last, 
for  he  did  not  move  after  that,  and  his  ugly,  slack- 
mouthed  face  was  at  once  quite  still.  Its  expression 
made  me  think  of  the  time  I  had  seen  it  as  a  child,  by 
lantern-light,  as  he  looked  down  at  the  new-born  lamb  on 
his  breast. 


IN  NEW  NEW  ENGLAND 


THIS  is  a  true  story,  for  I  have  heard  it  ever  so 
many  times  from  my  grandmother.  She  heard  it  from 
her  grandmother,  who  told  it  about  her  own  mother; 
and  it  began  and  ended  right  here  in  our  village  of 
Hillsboro,  Vermont,  in  1762. 

Probably  you  think  at  once  of  the  particular  New 
England  old  town  you  know,  and  imagine  Hillsboro  of 
that  date  as  an  elm-shaded,  well-kept  street,  with  big, 
white,  green-shuttered  houses,  full  of  shining  mahogany 
furniture  and  quaint  old  silver.  -  But  my  grandmother 
gives  an  entirely  different  picture  of  old  times  in  this 
corner  of  Vermont.  Conditions  here,  at  that  time,  were 
more  as  they  had  been  in  Connecticut  and  Massachusetts 
a  hundred  and  forty  years  before.  Indeed,  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers  endured  no  more  hardships  as  pioneers  in  a  wild, 
new  country  than  did  the  first  Vermonters. 

Hillsboro  had  been  settled  only  about  fifteen  years 
before  this  story  begins,  and  the  people  had  had  to  make 
for  themselves  whatever  they  possessed,  since  there  was 
no  way  to  reach  our  dark,  narrow  valley  except  by  horse 
back  over  the  ridge  of  the  Green  Mountains.  There  were 
no  fine  houses,  because  there  was  no  sawmill.  There 
were  little,  low  log  cabins  of  two  rooms  each,  and  the 
furniture,  such  as  it  was,  was  rough-hewn  out  of  native 
woods.  Our  great-grandfathers  were  too  busy  clearing 

139 


i4o  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

the  forest  and  planting  their  crops  to  spend  much  time 
designing  or  polishing  table-legs. 

And  the  number  of  things  they  did  not  have!  No 
stoves,  no  matches,  no  books,  no  lamps,  and  very  few 
candles;  no  doctors,  no  schools,  no  clocks,  and  so  nearly 
no  money  that  what  they  had  is  not  worth  mentioning. 
But  the  fact  that  there  were  no  schools  did  not  mean 
that  life  was  one  long  vacation  for  the  children. 

"  No,  indeedy !  "  as  grandmother  always  says  emphat 
ically. 

In  the  urgent  bustle  of  pioneer  life,  the  children  could 
not  be  spared  from  work  for  long  school-hours.  They 
picked  up  what  they  could  from  the  elders  of  their  fam 
ilies,  and  worked,  as  grandmother  puts  it,  "  as  tight  as 
they  could  leg  it "  from  morning  to  night.  Everybody 
else  worked  that  same  way,  so  the  children  did  not  know 
that  they  were  being  abused.  Indeed,  grandmother  seems 
to  doubt  if  they  were. 

At  any  rate,  they  all  ran  about  as  fast  as  ants  in  an 
ant-hill,  and  the  busiest  of  all  was  sixteen-year-old  Han 
nah  Sherwin.  Since  she  was  my  grandmother's  grand 
mother's  mother,  at  last  the  story  is  really  begun. 

Hannah  had  been  a  baby  of  eighteen  months  when  the 
Sherwins  came  over  the  mountains  from  the  old  home 
in  Connecticut,  so  she  knew  nothing  about  any  other 
way  of  living  than  what  she  saw  in  rough  little  Hillsboro. 
But  her  elder  sister,  Ann  Mary,  who  was  a  tall  girl  of 
nineteen,  remembered — or  thought  she  remembered — big 
houses  that  were  made  all  over  of  sawn  planks,  and 
chairs  that  were  so  shiny  you  could  see  your  face  in  them, 
or  else  stuffed  and  cushioned  in  brocade  as  soft — "as 
soft  as  a  feather  tick !  "  she  told  Hannah. 


IN  NEW  NEW  ENGLAND  141 

Her  listener,  having  no  idea  of  what  brocade  might 
be,  and  taking  the  feather-tick  simile  literally,  must  have 
imagined  a  very  queer  kind  of  chair. 

Hannah  was  a  short,  fair,  rosy-cheeked  child,  who 
passed  for  good-looking  enough;  but  Ann  Mary  was 
slender  and  dark  and  a  real  beauty,  although  Hillsboro 
people  did  not  realize  it.  She  looked  fragile,  as  if  she 
could  not  do  much  hard  work  and  that  is  always  a 
serious  blemish  in  feminine  beauty  to  the  eyes  of  pioneers. 

So  far  in  her  life  she  had  not  been  forced  to  do  any 
hard  work,  because  Hannah  had  done  it  all  for  her. 
Their  mother  had  died  when  they  were  both  little  girls, 
and  their  father  was  so  busy  outdoors,  every  minute  he 
was  awake,  that,  for  all  his  affection  for  them,  he  did 
not  know  or  care  which  of  his  daughters  cooked  and 
washed,  and  swept  and  spun,  so  long  as  these  things  were 
done.  And  Hannah  delighted  to  do  them,  because  she 
adored  Ann  Mary,  and  could  not  bear  to  have  her  sister 
troubled  with  any  of  the  coarse  tasks  which  made  up 
her  own  happy,  busy  day. 

Now,  all  that  grandmother  ever  tells  me  about  the  be 
ginning  of  this  story  is  that  when  the  lovely  Ann  Mary 
was  nineteen  years  old  she  "  fell  into  a  decline,"  as  they 
called  it.  She  grew  pale  and  thin,  never  smiled,  could  not 
eat  or  sleep,  and  lay  listlessly  on  the  bed  all  day,  look 
ing  sadly  at  Hannah  as  she  bustled  about. 

A  great  many  girls  in  those  days  fell  into  declines 
and  died.  Of  course,  nobody  knows  the  reason  for  most 
of  the  cases,  but  it  seems  as  plain  as  the  nose  on  my 
face  that  Ann  Mary's  sickness  was  entirely  Hannah's 
fault  for  not  letting  her  sister  do  her  share  of  the  house 
hold  work.  There  she  was — pretty  and  ignorant  and 


H2  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

idle — with  nothing  to  interest  her,  and  nothing  to  look 
forward  to,  for  in  those  days  marriage  was  the  only 
thing  a  girl  could  look  forward  to,  and  in  the  work 
aday  little  world  of  pioneer  Hillsboro  nobody  would 
dare  to  think  of  marrying  a  girl  who  looked  like  a  tea- 
rose  and  did  not  know  how  to  make  soft  soap.  No  won 
der  she  lost  her  appetite! 

It  might  not  have  gone  any  further,  however,  if  Han 
nah,  distracted  with  anxiety,  had  not  run  to  all  the  old 
women  in  town  about  her  sick  sister.  Every  one  of 
them  had  had  a  niece,  or  a  daughter — or  at  least  a 
granddaughter — who  had  died  in  a  decline;  so,  of  course, 
they  knew  just  what  to  do  for  Ann  Mary,  and  they  came 
and  did  it. 

Then  poor  Ann  Mary  was  sick,  indeed,  I  promise  you ! 
They  shut  her  up  in  the  inner  room  of  the  little  log  house, 
although  it  was  the  end  of  May,  and  the  weather  was  fit 
for  the  angels.  They  darkened  the  one  window,  and  kept 
the  door  closed,  and  put  the  sick  girl  to  bed  between  two 
mountains  of  feathers.  They  gave  her  "  sut "  (soot) 
tea  and  "herb-drink,"  and  steeped  butternut  bark,  and 
goodness  knows  what  else;  and  they  tiptoed  in  and  out, 
and  stared  at  her  mournfully,  and  shook  their  heads  and 
pursed  up  their  lips,  until  it  is  a  wonder  to  me  that  Ann 
Mary  did  not  die  at  once. 


II 

Very  likely  she  would  have  died,  if  one  day  in  June 
there  had  not  come  through  Hillsboro  a  trader  on  his 
way  from  "  over  the  mountain  "  up  to  Canada,  looking- 
for  furs.  That  morning,  when  Hannah  got  up,  she  found 


IN  NEW  NEW  ENGLAND  143 

the  fire  in  their  big  fireplace  completely  extinguished. 
She  snatched  up  the  warming-pan — not  a  polished  brass 
one  with  a  smooth,  turned  handle,  like  those  you  see  in 
Colonial  museums,  but  a  common  iron  pan,  fastened  to 
a  hickory  sapling;  and  she  went  as  fast  as  she  could, 
without  running — for  girls  never  ran  "  before  folks  "  in 
those  days — over  to  the  nearest  neighbor,  to  "  borrow  a 
handful  of  fire." 

The  neighbors  were  just  getting  up,  and  their  fire  was 
too  low  to  spare  any,  so  Hannah  had  to  wait  until  some 
hardwood  sticks  got  well  to  burning.  While  she  waited, 
the  trader,  who  was  staying  overnight  in  that  house,  went 
on  with  a  long  story  about  an  Indian  herb-doctor,  of 
whose  cures  he  had  heard  marvelous  tales,  three  days' 
journey  back.  It  seemed  that  the  Indian's  specialty  was 
curing  girls  who  had  gone  into  a  decline,  and  that  he  had 
never  failed  in  a  single  case  he  had  undertaken. 

You  can  imagine  how  Hannah's  loving,  anxious  heart 
leaped  up,  and  how  eagerly  she  questioned  the  trader 
about  the  road  to  the  settlement  where  the  Indian  lived. 
It  was  in  a  place  called  Heath  Falls,  on  the  Connecti 
cut  River,  the  trader  told  her;  but  he  could  not  find 
words  strong  enough  to  advise  her  against  trying  the 
trip. 

The  trail  lay  through  thick  woods,  filled  with  all  the 
terrors  of  early  New  Englanders — bears  and  wolves  and 
catamounts.  And  when  she  got  to  Heath  Falls,  she  would 
find  it  a  very  different  place  from  Hillsboro,  where  people 
took  you  in  gladly  for  the  sake  of  the  news  you  brought 
from  the  outside  world.  No,  the  folks  in  Heath  Falls 
were  very  grand.  They  traveled  themselves,  and  saw 
more  strangers  than  a  little.  You  had  to  pay  good  money 


144  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

for  shelter  and  food,  and,  of  course,  the  doctor  did  not 
cure  for  nothing.  He  was  a  kind  man,  the  trader,  and 
he  did  his  best  to  keep  Hannah  from  a  wildly  foolish 
enterprise. 

But  his  best  was  not  good  enough.  She  went  home 
and  looked  at  her  poor  Ann  Mary,  as  white  as  a  snow 
drift,  her  big  dark  eyes  ringed  with  black  circles,  and  Han 
nah  knew  only  two  things  in  the  world — that  there  was  a 
doctor  who  could  cure  her  sister,  and  that  she  must  get 
her  to  him.  She  was  only  a  child  herself;  she  had  no 
money,  no  horses,  no  experience;  but  nothing  made  any 
difference  to  her.  Ann  Mary  should  go  to  the  doctor, 
if  Hannah  had  to  carry  her  every  step! 

A  spirit  like  that  knows  no  obstacles.  Although  Hills- 
boro  held  up  hands  of  horror,  and  implored  John  Sherwin 
to  assert  his  parental  authority  and  forbid  his  girl  such 
a  rash,  unmaidenly,  bold  undertaking,  the  end  of  it  was 
that  Hannah  got  her  father's  permission.  He  loved  his 
daughters  dearly,  did  John  Sherwin,  and,  although  he 
could  not  see  how  the  thing  was  to  be  managed,  he  told 
Hannah  she  might  go  if  she  could. 

Now  it  happened  that  the  wife  of  one  of  their  neigh 
bors  had  long  coveted  the  two  great  feather-beds  between 
which  Ann  Mary  lay  sweltering.  Hannah  went  to  her, 
and  said  that  she  could  have  them  if  she  would  loan  her 
son,  a  sturdy  boy  of  fourteen,  and  two  horses,  for  the 
trip  to  Heath  Falls.  The  neighbor-woman  hesitated;  but 
when  Hannah  threw  in  the  two  pewter  candlesticks,  which 
came  from  her  mother's  family,  she  could  resist  no  longer. 
In  her  own  family  they  had  only  spike-iron  candlesticks, 
and  it  was  her  one  chance  of  acquiring  a  pair  of  fine  ones. 
So  she  wheedled  her  husband  into  agreeing  to  the  bar- 


IN  NEW  NEW  ENGLAND  145 

gain ;  and  there  was  Hannah  with  her  transportation  pro 
vided. 

As  soon  as  it  was  definitely  settled  that  she  was  to 
make  the  long  journey,  people  began  to  take  rather  a 
proud  interest  in  her  grit.  As  everybody  liked  her, 
they  gave  what  they  could  toward  helping  her  get 
ready — all  but  the  old  women,  who  were  furious  that  Ann 
Mary  was  to  be  taken  away  from  their  care. 

There  was  in  town  a  saddle  with  a  pillion  back  of  it, 
and  this  was  loaned  for  Remember  Williams,  the  neigh 
bor's  boy,  to  ride  and  carry  Ann  Mary  behind  him.  Han 
nah  folded  a  blanket  across  her  horse's  back,  and  sat  on 
sideways  as  best  she  could.  Behind  her  was  a  big  bun 
dle  of  extra  clothing,  and  food,  and  an  iron  pot — or,  as 
she  called  it,  a  "  kittle  "•  —for  cooking  their  noonday 
meals.  Her  father  brought  out  all  the  money  he  had — 
one  large  four-shilling  piece — and  Hannah  was  sure  that 
so  much  wealth  as  that  would  buy  anything  in  the  world. 

The  old  women  had  prophesied  that  Ann  Mary  would 
not  be  strong  enough  to  sit  upon  a  horse,  even  clinging 
to  Remember  Williams's  thick  waist;  but,  judging  from 
what  grandmother  says,  I  surmise  that  Ann  Mary,  with 
out  being  really  aware  of  it,  was  a  little  sick  of  being 
sick.  At  any  rate,  she  took  a  great  interest  in  the  prepa 
rations.  She  asked  over  and  over  again  about  the  girls 
the  herb-doctor  had  cured;  and  when  the  day  for  their 
departure  came  she  was  quite  pleased  and  excited,  and 
walked  out  through  the  crowd  of  sympathetic  neighbors. 
To  be  sure,  she  leaned  weakly  on  her  father,  but  there 
was  a  little  faint  color  in  her  cheeks. 

"  A  very  bad  sign ! "  the  old  women  whispered. 
"  She'll  never  live  the  journey  out.  If  only  Hannah  were 


i46  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

not  so  headstrong  and  obstinate!  But  then  you  can't 
blame  the  child  for  it — all  the  Sherwins  are  that  way!  " 

As  for  Ann  Mary,  she  sat  up  quite  straight  and  looked 
as  pretty  as  possible  when  the  little  company  rode  off. 
After  all,  she  had  been  "  declining  "  only  about  a  month, 
and  people  had  vigorous  constitutions  in  those  days. 

You  may  think  it  odd  that  she  was  not  afraid  to  make 
the  long  journey,  but  there  are  advantages  in  being  of  a 
dependent  nature.  Hannah  had  always  done  everything 
for  her,  and  had  kept  her  safe  from  harm.  Hannah  was 
with  her  now,  so  there  was  nothing  to  fear.  She  left  all 
that  to  Hannah,  who  did  it,  poor  child,  with  the  greatest 
thoroughness ! 

Now  that  the  excitement  of  overcoming  Hillsboro  op 
position  was  passed;  now  that  they  were  really  started, 
with  herself  as  sole  leader  and  guide,  responsibility  fell 
like  a  black  cloud  upon  her  young  heart.  There  was  noth 
ing  she  did  not  fear — for  Ann  Mary,  of  course — from 
wolves  and  Indians  to  fatigue  or  thunderstorms. 

A  dozen  times  that  day,  as  they  paced  slowly  over  the 
rough  trail,  she  asked  her  sister  anxiously  if  she  were 
not  too  hot  or  too  cold,  or  too  tired  or  too  faint,  imitat 
ing  as  best  she  could  the  matter  and  manner  of  the  doc 
toring  old  women.  However,  Ann  Mary  surprised  her 
self,  as  well  as  Hannah,  by  being  none  of  the  uncomfort 
able  things  that  her  sister  kept  suggesting  to  her  she 
might  very  well  be.  It  was  perfect  June  weather,  they 
were  going  over  some  of  the  loveliest  country  in  the 
world,  and  Ann  Mary  was  out  of  doors  for  the  first  time 
in  four  weeks  or  more. 

She  "  kept  up  "  wonderfully  well,  and  they  made  good 
time,  reaching  by  dusk,  as  they  had  hoped  to  do,  a  farm- 


IN  NEW  NEW  ENGLAND  147 

er's  house  on  the  downward  dip  of  the  mountain  to  the 
east.  Here,  their  story  being  told,  they  were  hospita 
bly  received,  and  Ann  Mary  was  clapped  into  the  airless 
inner  room  and  fed  with  gruel  and  dipped  toast.  But 
she  had  had  fresh  air  and  exercise  all  day,  and  a  hearty 
meal  of  cold  venison  and  corn  bread  at  their  noonday 
rest,  so  she  slept  soundly. 

The  next  day  they  went  across  a  wide,  hilly  valley,  up 
another  range  of  low  mountains,  and  down  on  the  other 
side.  The  country  was  quite  strange  to  them,  and  some 
how,  before  they  knew  it,  they  were  not  on  the  road  rec 
ommended  to  them  by  their  hosts  of  the  night  before. 
Night  overtook  them  when  they  were  still,  as  the  phrase 
has  come  down  in  our  family,  "  in  a  miserable,  dismal 
place  of  wood.'* 

Hannah's  teeth  chattered  for  very  terror  as  she  saw 
their  plight;  but  she  spoke  cheerfully  to  Ann  Mary  and 
the  boy,  who  looked  to  her  for  courage,  and  told  them 
that  they  were  to  have  the  fun  of  sleeping  under  the  stars. 
Boys  were  the  same  then  as  now,  and  Remember  Wil 
liams  was  partly  shivering  with  dread  of  bears  and  In 
dians  and  things,  and  partly  glowing  with  anticipatory 
glory  of  telling  the  Hillsboro  boys  all  about  the  adventure. 
Hannah  soothed  the  first  and  inflamed  the  second  emo 
tion  until  she  had  Remember  strutting  about  gathering 
firewood,  as  brave  as  a  lion. 

Very  probably  Ann  Mary  would  have  been  frightened 
to  death,  if  she  had  not  been  so  sleepy  from  her  long  day 
out  of  doors  that  she  could  not  keep  her  eyes  open.  And 
then,  of  course,  everything  must  be  all  right,  because 
there  was  Hannah! 

This  forlorn  terrified  little  captain  wrapped  the  invalid 


148  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

in  all  the  extra  clothing,  managed  to  get  a  fire  started, 
and  cooked  a  supper  of  hot  cornmeal  mush  in  her  big 
iron  "  kittle."  Ann  Mary  ate  a  great  deal  of  this,  sweet 
ened  as  it  was  with  maple  sugar  crumbled  from  the  big 
lump  Hannah  had  brought  along  and  immediately  after 
ward  she  fell  sound  asleep. 

Soon  the  soft  night  air  of  June  was  too  strong  a  sopo 
rific  for  Remember 's  desire  to  keep  awake  and  hear  the 
catamounts  scream,  as  he  had  heard  they  did  in  those 
woods.  Hannah  was  left  quite  alone  to  keep  watch  and 
to  tend  the  fire,  her  heart  in  her  mouth,  jumping  and 
starting  at  every  shadow  cast  by  the  flames. 

She  knew  that  wild  beasts  would  not  come  near  them 
if  a  big  fire  burned  briskly;  and  all  that  night  she  piled 
on  the  wood,  scraped  away  the  ashes,  and  watched  Ann 
Mary  to  see  that  she  did  not  grow  chilly.  Hannah  does 
not  seem  to  have  been  much  inclined  to  talk  about  her 
own  feelings,  and  there  is  no  record  of  what  she  suffered 
that  night;  but  I  think  we  may  be  sure  that  it  seemed  a 
long  time  to  her  before  the  sky  began  to  whiten  in  the 
east. 

As  soon  as  she  could  see  plainly,  she  cooked  a  hearty 
breakfast  of  broiled  bacon  and  fried  mush,  and  wakened 
her  two  charges  to  eat  it.  They  made  a  very  early  start, 
and  there  is  nothing  more  to  tell  about  their  journey  ex 
cept  that  at  about  seven  o'clock  that  evening  the  two  tired 
horses  crept  into  the  main  street  of  Heath  Falls,  and  a 
very  much  excited  girl  asked  the  first  passer-by  where 
the  Indian  herb-doctor  lived. 

They  found  him  in  a  little  old  house  of  logs — the  only 
one  that  looked  natural  to  them  in  the  prosperous  set 
tlement.  When  Hannah  knocked  at  the  door,  he  opened 


IN  NEW  NEW  ENGLAND  149 

it  himself.  He  was  a  small,  very  old,  dark-brown,  and 
prodigiously  wrinkled  individual,  who  held  up  a  candle 
and  looked  at  Hannah  with  the  most  impassive  eyes  she 
had  ever  seen — like  little  pools  of  black  water  unstirred 
by  any  wind. 

Hannah's  breath  came  fast. 

"  Is  this  the  Indian  herb-doctor  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Aye,"  he  answered. 

When  you  remember  that  Hannah  was  only  a  little  girl, 
and  that  she  thought  she  had  come  to  the  end  of  a  night 
mare  of  responsibility,  it  will  not  surprise  you  to  learn 
that  she  now  began  to  cry  a  little,  out  of  agitation. 

"  I  have  brought  Ann  Mary,"  she  said,  "  my  sister,  to 
be  cured.  She  is  in  a  decline.  Will  you  cure  her? " 

The  herb-doctor  showed  no  surprise.  He  set  the  can 
dle  down  on  the  shelf,  and  went  out  in  the  bright  star 
light  to  where  Ann  Mary  clung  to  Remember  Williams's 
waist.  When  he  put  up  his  brown  old  hands  to  her,  she 
slid  down  into  them  and  upon  the  ground.  He  still  held 
one  wrist,  and  this  he  continued  to  do  for  some  moments, 
looking  at  the  white,  drooping  girl  without  moving  a 
muscle  of  his  solemn  old  face.  Then  he  turned  to  Han 
nah,  who  had  stopped  crying  and  was  holding  her  breath 
in  suspense. 

"  Aye,"  he  said. 

At  this  Hannah  caught  her  sister  around  the  neck,  sob 
bing  joyfully: 

"He  will  cure  you,  Ann  Mary;  he  will  cure  you!" 
Then  she  asked  the  doctor :  "  And  how  long  will  it  take  ? 
We  can  stay  but  a  few  days,  for  the  boy  and  the  horses 
must  get  back  soon." 

The  herb-doctor  considered  for  a  moment. 


i5o  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

"  It  is  now  the  end  of  June  month.  By  the  end  of 
September  month  she  will  be  cured — not  before." 

I  think  I  know  that  that  was  a  black  moment  for  Han 
nah.  She  said  nothing  at  all,  but  the  sick  girl  fell  to 
weeping. 

"  But,  Master  Doctor,  we  cannot  stay — we  cannot ! 
And  now,  after  all,  I  shall  not  be  cured !  " 

Hannah  could  not  bear  to  see  her  sweet  Ann  Mary  in 
tears,  and  she  cried  out  stoutly: 

"Yes,  you  shall,  too!  Remember  can  take  the  horses 
back  without  us,  and  tell  our  father.  Somehow — I  can 
earn — oh,  we  must!"  Then  a  new  fear  sprang  into  her 
heart.  "  Oh,  sir,"  she  cried  to  the  doctor,  "  is  it  dear, 
your  cure?  Must  one  have  much  silver  for  it?" 

The  stolid  little  old  gnome  did  not  look  toward  her  or 
change  his  position  as  he  said: 

"  It  costs  time — no  silver."  He  moved  toward  the 
house.  "  Go  to  the  minister's  to-night,"  he  called  from 
his  doorstep.  "  It  is  the  house  of  brick."  Just  before 
he  closed  his  door  he  added :  "  Come  here  to-morrow 
morning." 

When  they  reached  the  great  brick  house,  the  other  two 
hung  back,  afraid  of  so  much  grandeur;  but  three  days 
of  travel  through  the  dangers  of  a  primitive  forest  had 
hardened  Hannah  to  the  lesser  fear  of  strange  people. 
To  the  old  minister  and  his  wife  she  told  their  story 
very  briefly,  with  a  desperate  kind  of  self-possession,  so 
concerned  about  poor  Ann  Mary,  tired  and  hungry,  wait 
ing  out  in  the  night  air,  that  she  did  not  remember  to 
be  afraid  of  the  minister's  fine  linen  and  smooth,  white 
hands,  or  of  the  laces  and  dark  silk  of  his  handsome, 
white-haired  wife,  or  of  the  gold  braid  and  red  coat  of 


IN  NEW  NEW  ENGLAND  151 

a  dark  young  man  with  a  quick  eye  who  sat  in  the  cor 
ner. 

The  young  man  said  nothing  until  after  the  old  people 
had  gone  out  to  bring  in  the  wanderers.  Then : 

;<  You  must  be  fond,  indeed,  of  your  sister,  my  little 
lass,"  he  said  kindly. 

"  Sir,"  said  Hannah,  "  you  should  see  my  sister!  " 

And  just  then  he  did  see  her.  Ann  Mary  came  into 
the  brightly  lighted  room,  her  eyes  wide  and  dark  from 
the  dusk  outside,  her  long  black  hair,  shaken  loose  from 
its  fastenings,  curling  up  beautifully  with  the  dew,  and 
making  a  frame  for  the  pearl-like  oval  of  her  face.  I 
have  seen  a  miniature  of  Ann  Mary  in  her  youth,  and  I 
can  guess  how  she  must  have  looked  to  the  young  officer 
that  evening. 

The  minister's  wife  gave  them  all  a  hot  supper,  and 
hurried  them  off  to  bed  with  motherly  authority.  For 
the  first  time  in  her  life,  Hannah  found  herself  between 
linen  sheets.  She  tried  to  call  her  sister's  attention  to 
this  astonishing  magnificence,  but  fell  asleep  in  the  middle 
of  the  sentence,  and  did  not  wake  until  late  the  next 
morning.  Ann  Mary  had  been  awake  for  some  time,  but 
did  not  dare  get  up,  so  overcome  was  she  by  shyness  and 
reverence  for  the  grandeur  of  the  room  and  of  her  hosts. 

"  Oh,  Hannah !  Would  it  not  be  like  heaven  to  live 
always  in  such  a  place?"  she  said. 

Hannah  could  not  stop  to  be  shy,  or  to  think  about 
how  she  would  like  mahogany  beds  all  the  time.  She 
had  too  much  on  her  mind.  They  must  go  at  once  to 
the  herb-doctor's — they  should  have  been  there  before 
— and  they  must  hurry  through  their  breakfast.  It  is, 
perhaps,  worthy  of  note  that  both  girls  came  down  the 


152  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

stairs  backward,  ladders  having  been,  up  to  that  time,  their 
only  means  of  reaching  elevations. 

During  their  breakfast,  the  dark  young  man,  who 
turned  out  to  be  a  cousin  of  the  minister's,  sat  in  a  cor 
ner,  playing  with  his  dog's  ears,  and  looking  at  Ann 
Mary  until  she  was  quite  abashed,  although  the  younger 
girl,  at  whom  he  glanced  smilingly  from  time  to  time, 
thought  he  looked  very  good-natured.  After  this,  Han 
nah  sent  Remember  Williams  home  with  the  horses,  giv 
ing  him  fresh  and  elaborate  directions  about  the  right 
road  to  take.  Then  she  marched  Ann  Mary  to  the  herb- 
doctor's. 

"Here,  Master  Necronsett,"  she  said,  "here  is  Ann 
Mary  to  be  cured !  " 

III 

When  the  doctor  told  them  about  his  system,  Hannah 
did  not  like  the  sound  of  it  at  all.  Not  a  drop  of  "  sut 
tea  "  or  herb-drink  was  mentioned,  but  the  invalid  was 
to  eat  all  the  hearty  food  Hannah  could  earn  for  her. 
Then,  so  far  from  sleeping  in  a  decently  tight  room, 
their  bed  was  to  stand  in  a  little  old  shed,  set  up  against 
Master  Necronsett's  house.  One  side  of  the  shed  was 
gone  entirely,  so  that  the  wind  and  the  sun  would  come 
right  in  on  poor,  delicate  Ann  Mary,  and  there  was  only 
an  awning  of  woven  bark-withes  to  let  down  when  it 
rained. 

But  even  that  was  not  the  worst.  Hannah  listened 
with  growing  suspicion  while  Master  Necronsett  ex 
plained  the  rest  of  it.  All  his  magic  consisted  in  the 
use  of  a  "  witch  plant,"  the  whole  virtue  of  which  de- 


IN  NEW  NEW  ENGLAND  153 

pended  on  one  thing.  The  sick  person  must  be  the  only 
one  to  handle  or  care  for  it,  from  the  seed  up  to  the 
mature  plant. 

He  took  them  up  to  his  garret,  where  row  after  row 
of  dried  plants  hung,  heavy  with  seed-pods,  and  with  the 
most  careful  precautions  to  avoid  touching  them  himself, 
or  having  Hannah  do  so,  he  directed  Ann  Mary  to  fill  a 
two-quart  basin  with  the  seed. 

"That  will  plant  a  piece  of  ground  about  six  paces 
square,"  he  said.  ;<  That  will  raise  enough  seed  for  you." 

"  But  who  is  to  dig  the  ground,  and  plant,  and  weed, 
and  water,  and  all?"  asked  Hannah.  "If  I  am  to  be 
earning  all  day,  who 

"  The  sick  person  must  do  all,"  said  the  herb-doctor. 

Hannah  could  not  believe  her  senses.  Her  Ann 
Mary,  who  could  not  even  brush  her  own  hair  without 
fatigue,  she  to  take  a  spade  in  her 

"  Oh,  Master  Doctor,"  she  cried,  "  can  I  not  do  it  for 
her?" 

The  old  Indian  turned  his  opaque  black  eyes  upon  her. 

"  Nay,"  he  said  dryly,  "  you  cannot." 

And  with  that  he  showed  them  where  the  witch  gar 
den  was  to  be,  close  before  their  little  sleeping-hut. 
That  was  why,  he  explained,  the  patient  must  spend  all 
her  time  there,  so  that  by  night,  as  well  as  by  day,  she 
could  absorb  the  magical  virtues  of  the  growing  plant. 
Hannah  thought  those  were  the  first  sensible  words  she 
had  heard  him  say. 

She  had  promised  the  minister's  wife  to  be  back  at  a 
certain  hour  to  see  about  employment,  so  she  dared  not 
stay  longer,  though  it  was  with  a  sinking  heart  that  she 
left  her  sister  to  that  grim  old  savage,  with  his  brusque 


154  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

lack  of  sympathy.  However,  the  minister's  wife  reas 
sured  her  with  stories  of  all  the  other  girls  from  far 
and  near  whom  he  had  cured  by  that'  same  foolish,  silly 
method ;  so  Hannah  turned  all  her  energies  upon  the  spin 
ning  which  a  neighbor-woman  had  set  her  to  do. 

Hired  workers  have  been  the  same  from  the  days  of 
the  Psalmist  down  to  our  own,  and  Hannah,  putting  her 
whole  heart  into  her  work,  accomplished,  so  her  sur 
prised  employer  told  her,  twice  as  much  spinning  as  any 
serving-girl  she  had  ever  hired. 

"And  excellent  good  thread,  too!"  she  said,  examin 
ing  it. 

If  Hannah  kept  up  to  that,  she  added,  she  could  have 
all  the  work  she  had  time  for.  She  gave  the  little  girl 
two  pennies — two  real  pennies,  the  first  money  Hannah 
had  ever  earned.  With  a  head  spinning  with  triumph, 
she  calculated  that  at  that  rate  she  could  earn  fourpence 
a  day! 

She  spent  a  farthing  for  some  fish  a  little  boy  brought 
up  from  the  river,  and  a  halfpenny  for  some  fresh- 
baked  bread,  and  a  part  of  her  precious  four-shilling  piece 
for  an  iron  fry-pan,  or  "  spider."  Laden  with  these,  she 
hurried  back  to  see  how  Ann  Mary  had  endured  the  old 
doctor's  roughness.  She  found  her  sister  very  tired,  but 
proudly  anxious  to  show  a  little  spot,  perhaps  six  feet 
square,  which  she  had  spaded  up  with  intervals  of  rest. 

"  The  herb-doctor  says  that  I  have  done  well,  and  that 
I  will  finish  the  spading  in  a  week,  or  perhaps  even  less/' 
she  said :  "  and  I  like  Master  Necronsett !  He  is  a  good 
old  man,  and  I  know  that  he  will  cure  me.  He  makes 
me  feel  very  rested  when  he  comes  near." 

Hannah  felt  a  little  pang  to  think  that  her  sister  should 


IN  NEW  NEW  ENGLAND  155 

not  miss  her  own  brooding  care,  but  when  Ann  Mary 
cried  out  joyfully  at  the  sight  of  the  food,  "  Oh,  how 
hungry  I  am !  "  everything  but  pleasure  was  immediately 
swept  away  from  the  little  sister's  loyal  heart. 

They  cooked  their  supper — Hannah  still  had  some  of  the 
cornmeal  and  the  flitch  of  bacon  their  Hillsboro  friends 
had  given  them — and  went  to  bed  directly  on  the  queer, 
hard  bed,  with  a  straw  tick  and  no  feathers,  which  Dr. 
Necronsett  had  prescribed,  warmly  wrapped  up  in  the  pair 
of  heavy  Indian  blankets  he  had  loaned  them.  They 
were  so  close  to  the  house  that  they  heard  the  old  doctor 
moving  around  inside,  and  they  could  see  the  light  of  his 
candle,  so  they  were  not  afraid. 

Indeed,  the  two  sisters  were  so  sleepy  that  even  if  they 
had  been  timorous  it  could  scarcely  have  kept  them  from 
the  deep  slumber  into  which  they  fell  at  once,  and  which 
lasted  until  the  sun  shone  in  on  them  the  next  morning. 


IV 

That  was  the  first  day  of  that  wonderful  summer,  and 
most  of  the  days  which  followed  were  like  it.  Every 
morning  Hannah  rose  early,  made  a  little  open  fire, 
cooked  their  breakfast,  and  was  off  to  her  spinning.  Just 
as  her  first  employer  had  said,  there  was  no  lack  of  work 
for  a  spinner  who  worked  as  fast  and  yet  as  carefully  as 
if  it  were  for  herself.  In  Hannah's  thread  there  were 
never  any  thin  places  which  broke  as  soon  as  the  weaver 
stretched  it  on  the  loom,  nor  yet  any  thick  lumps  where 
the  wool  had  insisted,  in  grandmother's  phrase,  "  on  go 
ing  all  kim-kam." 

At  first,  she  went  about  to  people's  houses;  but,  seeing 


156  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

her  so  neat  and  careful,  the  minister's  wife  loaned  her 
one  of  her  own  wheels,  and  the  minister  had  an  old  gran 
ary  cleared  out  for  her  workroom.  Here,  day  after  day, 
the  wheel  whirred  unceasingly,  like  a  great  bee,  and  Han 
nah  stepped  back  and  forth,  back  and  forth,  on  her  tire 
less  young  feet,  only  glancing  out  through  the  big  door 
at  the  bright  glories  of  the  summer  weather,  and  never 
once  regretting  her  imprisonment. 

Indeed,  she  said,  all  her  life  afterward,  that  she  was 
so  happy,  that  summer,  it  seemed  heaven  itself  could 
hold  no  greater  joy  for  her.  Of  course,  first  always 
in  her  thoughts  was  Ann  Mary,  pulling  weeds  and  tend 
ing  her  witch  garden,  and  growing  plump  and  rosy,  and 
so  strong  that  she  laughed  and  ran  about  and  sang  as 
never  in  her  life  before. 

Hannah  put  very  little  faith  in  the  agricultural  part  of 
the  cure.  She  thought  that  very  probably  it  was  nothing 
more  than  a  blind,  and  that  Master  Necronsett  came  out 
at  night  and  said  charms  and  things  over  Ann  Mary  as 
she  slept.  However  that  might  be,  she  could  have  kissed 
his  funny,  splay  feet  every  time  she  looked  at  her  sister's 
bright  eyes  and  red  lips;  and  when  she  thought  of  the 
joy  it  would  be  to  her  father,  she  could  have  kissed  his 
ugly,  wrinkled  old  face. 

But,  besides  her  joy  over  her  sister's  health,  the  sum 
mer  was  for  Hannah  herself  a  continual  feast  of  delight. 
Captain  Winthrop,  the  minister's  young  cousin,  was  stay 
ing  in  Heath  Falls  to  recover  from  an  arrow-wound  got 
in  a  skirmish  with  the  Indians  in  Canada.  He  was  very 
idle,  and  very  much  bored  by  the  dullness  of  the  little 
town,  which  seemed  such  a  metropolis  to  the  two  girls 
,from  Hillsboro.  One  day,  attracted  by  Hannah's  shin- 


IN  NEW  NEW  ENGLAND  157 

ing  face  of  content,  he  lounged  over  to  the  step  of  her 
granary,  and  began  to  talk  to  her  through  the  open  door 
way. 

It  happened  to  come  out  that  the  little  spinner,  while 
she  knew  her  letters  from  having  worked  them  into  a 
sampler,  and  could  make  shift  to  write  her  name,  could 
not  read  or  write,  and  had  never  had  the  slightest  in 
struction  in  any  sort  of  book-learning.  Thereupon  the 
young  officer  good-naturedly  proposed  to  be  her  teacher, 
if  Hannah  would  like. 

Would  she  like!  She  turned  to  him  a  look  of  such 
utter  ecstasy  that  he  was  quite  touched,  and  went  off  at 
once  to  get  an  old  "  A-B,  ab  "  book. 

That  was  the  beginning  of  a  new  world  to  Hannah. 
She  took  her  young  instructor's  breath  away  by  the  avid 
ity  with  which  she  devoured  the  lessons  he  set  her.  By 
the  rapt  air  of  exultation  with  which  Hannah  recited 
them,  stepping  back  and  forth  by  her  wheel,  you  would 
have  thought  that  "  c-a-t,  cat;  r-a-t,  rat,"  was  the  finest 
poetry  ever  written.  And  in  no  time  at  all  it  was  no 
longer  "c-a-t,  cat,"  but  "parallel,"  and  "phthisis,"  and 
such  orthographical  atrocities,  on  which  the  eager  scholar 
was  feeding;  for,  Hannah's  mind  was  as  fresh  as  her 
round,  rosy  face,  and  as  vigorous  as  her  stout  little  body. 

Captain  Winthrop  had  several  reasons  for  being  inter 
ested  in  Hannah  " ;  and  when  he  found  her  so  quick  at 
her  spelling,  he  said  he  was  willing  to  occupy  some  of 
his  enforced  leisure  in  giving  her  instruction  in  other 
branches.  Hannah  fell  to  at  this  feast  of  knowledge  like 
a  young  bear  in  a  bee-tree. 

But  there  were  some  difficulties.  Like  the  spelling, 
arithmetic  was  all  very  well,  since  she  could  do  that  in 


158  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

her  head  while  she  spun;  but  reading  and  writing  were 
different.  She  would  not  stop  her  work  for  them,  and 
so  Captain  Winthrop  fell  into  the  habit  of  going  over 
to  Master  Necronsett's  house  in  the  afternoon  with  his 
books,  and  being  there,  all  ready  for  a  lesson,  when  Han 
nah  came  hurrying  back  after  she  had  finished  her  day's 
"  stint."  As  long  as  there  was  light  to  see,  she  pored  over 
her  writing  and  reading,  while  the  young  officer  sat  by, 
ready  to  help,  and  talking  in  a  low  tone  to  Ann  Mary. 

After  a  time  there  grew  up  a  regular  routine  for  Cap 
tain  Winthrop.  In  the  mornings  he  went  out  to  the 
granary  and  read  aloud  to  Hannah  from  a  book  called 
"  The  Universal  Preceptor;  being  a  General  Grammar  of 
Art,  Science,  and  Useful  Knowledge."  Out  of  this  he 
taught  her  about  "  mechanical  powers  "  and  "  animated 
nature  "  and  astronomy  and  history  and  geography — al 
most  anything  that  came  to  his  hand. 

Up  in  our  garret  we  have  the  very  book  he  used,  and 
modern  research  and  science  have  proved  that  there  is 
scarcely  a  true  word  in  it.  But  don't  waste  any  pity  on 
Hannah  for  having  such  a  mistaken  teacher,  for  it  is 
likely  enough,  don't  you  think,  that  research  and  science 
a  hundred  years  from  now  will  have  proved  that  there  is 
scarcely  a  word  of  truth  in  our  school-books  of  to-day? 
It  really  doesn't  seem  to  matter  much. 

At  any  rate,  those  were  the  things  of  which  Captain 
Winthrop  talked  to  Hannah  in  the  mornings.  In  the 
afternoon,  he  went  over  to  an  apple-tree  by  the  edge  of 
the  witch  garden,  and  there  he  found  Ann  Mary;  and 
what  he  talked  to  her  about  nobody  knew  but  herself, 
although  Master  Necronsett  passed  back  and  forth  so 
often  in  his  herb-gathering  that  it  is  likely  he  may  have 


IN  NEW  NEW  ENGLAND  159 

caught  something.  It  seems  not  improbable,  from  what 
happened  afterward,  that  the  young  man  was  telling  the 
young  girl  things  which  did  not  come  out  of  a  book,  and 
which  are  consequently  safe  from  science  and  research, 
for  they  are  certainly  as  true  to-day  as  they  were  then. 

Once,  in  her  anxiety  to  have  everything  exactly  right 
for  her  sister,  Hannah  asked  Master  Necronsett  about 
Captain  Winthrop's  being  there  so  much. 

"  Master  Doctor,  will  not  Captain  Winthrop  absorb, 
perchance,  some  of  the  great  virtue  of  the  plant  away 
from  Ann  Mary  ?  Will  he  not  hurt  her  cure  ?  " 

Grandmother  never  says  so,  but  I  have  always  imagined 
that  even  that  carven  image  of  an  old  aborigine  must 
have  smiled  a  little  as  he  told  her: 

"  Nay,  the  young  man  will  not  hurt  your  sister's  cure." 


At  the  end  of  September,  something  tremendously  ex 
citing  happened  to  Hannah.  She  had  been  so  busy  learn 
ing  the  contents  of  that  old  calf -bound  book  that  she 
had  never  noticed  how  a  light  seemed  to  shine  right 
through  Ann  Mary's  lovely  face  every  time  Captain  Win 
throp  looked  at  her.  The  little  student  was  the  most 
surprised  girl  in  the  world  when  the  young  soldier  told 
her,  one  morning  in  the  granary,  that  he  wanted  her  sis 
ter  to  marry  him,  and  that  Ann  Mary  wanted  it,  too,  if 
Hannah  would  allow  it. 

He  laughed  a  little  as  he  said  this  last,  but  he  looked 
anxiously  at  her,  for  Ann  Mary,  who  was  as  sweet  as 
she  was  pretty  and  useless,  had  felt  it  to  be  a  poor  re 
turn  for  Hannah's  devotion,  now  after  all,  just  to  go 


160  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

off  and  desert  her.  She  had  said  that,  if  Hannah  thought 
she  ought  to,  she  would  go  back  to  Hillsboro,  and  they 
would  have  to  wait  ever  so  long.  So  now  Captain  Win- 
throp  looked  very  nervously  at  Ann  Mary's  little  sister. 

But  he  did  not  know  Hannah.  She  gave  a  little  cry,  as 
if  someone  had  stabbed  her,  turned  very  pale,  and,  leav 
ing  her  wheel  still  whirling,  she  ran  like  the  wind  toward 
Dr.  Necronsett's.  She  wanted  to  see  her  sister;  she 
wanted  to  see  if  this 

Close  to  the  minister's  house  she  met  Ann  Mary,  who 
could  not  wait  any  longer,  and  was  coming  to  meet  her. 
After  one  glimpse  of  that  beautiful,  radiant  face,  Han 
nah  fell  a  weeping  for  very  joy  that  her  dear  Ann  Mary 
was  so  happy,  and  was  to  marry  the  grand  and  learned 
and  goodly  Captain  Winthrop. 

There  was  not  a  thought  in  Hannah's  mind,  then  or 
later,  that  she  must  lose  Ann  Mary  herself.  Grand 
mother  explains  here  that  the  truth  is  that  a  heart  like 
Hannah's  cannot  lose  anything  good;  and  perhaps  that 
is  so. 

Thus,  hand  in  hand,  laughing  and  crying  together,  the 
two  girls  came  back  to  the  granary,  where  Ann  Mary's 
lover  took  her  in  his  arms  and  kissed  her  many  times 
out  of  light-heartedness  that  Hannah  would  put  no  ob 
stacle  in  the  way.  This  made  little  Hannah  blush  and 
feel  very  queer.  She  looked  away,  and  there  was  her 
wheel  still  languidly  stirring  a  little.  Dear  me!  How 
many,  many  times  have  I  heard  the  next  detail  in  the 
story  told ! 

"  And,  without  really,  so  to  speak,  sensing  what  she 
was  doing,  didn't  she  put  her  hand  to  the  rim  and  start 
it  up  again?  And  when  the  other  two  looked  around  at 


IN  NEW  NEW  ENGLAND  161 

her,  there  she  was,  spinning  and  smiling,  with  the  tears 
in  her  eyes.  It  had  all  happened  in  less  time  than  it 
takes  a  spin- wheel  to  run  down." 

After  that  day  things  happened  fast.  Captain  Win- 
throp  rode  off  over  the  mountains  to  Hillsboro,  to  ask 
John  Sherwin  if  he  might  marry  his  daughter;  and  when 
he  came  back,  there  was  John  Sherwin  himself  riding 
along  beside  him,  like  an  old  friend.  And  when  he  saw 
his  two  dear  daughters — Ann  Mary,  who  had  gone  away 
like  a  lily,  now  blooming  like  a  rose,  and  Hannah,  stout 
little  Hannah,  with  her  honest  blue  eyes  shining — when 
he  saw  his  two  daughters,  I  say — well,  I'm  sure  I  have 
no  idea  what  happened,  for  at  this  point  grandmother 
always  takes  off  her  glasses,  and  sniffs  hard,  and  wipes 
her  eyes  before  she  can  go  on. 

So  there  was  a  wedding  at  the  minister's  house,  and 
everybody  in  Heath  Falls  was  invited,  because  Hannah 
said  they  had  been  so  good  to  her.  Everybody  came,  too, 
except  old  Master  Necronsett,  and  that  was  nothing,  be 
cause  he  never  went  anywhere  except  to  the  woods. 

I  know  just  what  the  bride  and  Hannah  wore,  for  we 
have  pieces  of  the  material  in  our  oldest  cedar  chest; 
but,  of  course,  as  they  weren't  your  own  great-great- 
great-grandmother  and  aunt,  perhaps  you  wouldn't  care 
to  have  me  tell  you  all  about  their  costumes.  It  was  a 
grand  occasion,  however — that  you  can  take  from  me; 
and  the  family  tradition  is  that  Ann  Mary  looked  like  a 
wonderful  combination  of  an  angel  and  a  star. 

And  then  Captain  and  Mrs.  Winthrop  rode  off  in  one 
direction,  and  Hannah  and  her  father  in  another,  and 
there  were  a  great  many  tears  shed,  for  all  everybody 
was  so  happy. 


162  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

VI 

Hannah  went  home  with  her  head  full  of  new  ideas, 
and  with  four  books  in  her  saddle-bags — which,  for  those 
days,  was  a  large  library.  These  were  the  Bible,  the 
"  Universal  Preceptor,"  a  volume  of  the  Shakespeare 
comedies,  and  Plutarch's  "  Lives."  Armed  with  these 
weapons,  how  she  did  stir  things  up  in  Hillsboro!  She 
got  the  children  together  into  a  school,  and  taught  them 
everything  she  had  learned  in  Heath  Falls;  and  that  was 
so  much — what  with  the  studying  which  she  always  kept 
up  by  herself — that  from  our  little  scrap  of  a  village 
three  students  went  down  to  the  college  at  William's 
Town,  in  Massachusetts,  the  first  year  it  was  started, 
and  there  has  been  a  regular  procession  of  them  ever 
since. 

After  a  time  she  married  Giles  Wheeler,  and  began  to 
teach  her  own  children — she  had  nine — and  very  well 
instructed  they  were.  She  was  too  busy,  then,  to  go  into 
the  schoolroom  to  teach;  but  never,  then  or  later,  even 
when  she  was  an  old,  old  woman,  did  she  take  her 
vigilant  eyes  and  her  managing  hand  off  the  schools  of 
our  county. 

It  was  due  to  her  that  Hillsboro  could  boast  for  so  long 
that  its  percentage  of  illiterates  was  zero.  If,  by  chance, 
anyone  grew  up  without  knowing  how  to  read,  Aunt 
Hannah  pounced  on  him  and  made  him  learn,  whether 
he  would  or  not.  She  loaned  about,  to  anyone  who  would 
read  them,  the  books  she  brought  from  Heath  Falls;  and 
in  time  she  started  a  little  library.  Remembering  the 
days  when  Captain  Winthrop  had  read  aloud  to  her  in 
the  granary,  she  had  her  children  go  about  to  read  aloud 


IN  NEW  NEW  ENGLAND  163 

to  sick  people,  and  to  busy  seamstresses  or  spinners  who 
had  no  time  for  books.' 

And  the  number  of  girls  in  declines  she  cured  by  Mas 
ter  Necronsett's  system!  You  would  not  believe  it,  if  I 
told  you.  And  she  had  our  river  named  after  that  wise 
old  heathen,  and  we  think  it  the  prettiest  name  possible 
for  a  river. 

All  this  time,  Ann  Mary's  position  was  getting  grander 
and  grander,  for  Captain  Winthrop  was  on  the  Ameri 
can  side  when  the  Revolution  came,  and  grew  to  be  a  very 
important  man.  Ann  Mary  dressed  in  brocade  every  day 
and  all  day,  and  went  to  Philadelphia,  where  she  met 
General  and  Mrs.  Washington,  and  ever  so  many  more 
famous  people. 

Wherever  she  went,  she  was  admired  and  loved  for 
her  beauty  and  gentleness;  but  she  did  not  forget  Han 
nah.  Nearly  every  traveler  from  the  South  brought  a 
message  or  a  present  from  Madam  Winthrop  to  Mistress 
Wheeler,  and  once  she  and  General  Winthrop  came  and 
made  a  long  visit  in  Hillsboro. 

Grandmother's  grandmother  was  old  enough,  by  that 
time,  to  remember  the  visit  very  clearly;  and  it  was  from 
talk  between  the  two  sisters  that  she  learned  all  about 
this  story.  She  said  she  never  saw  a  more  beautiful 
woman  than  Madam  Winthrop,  nor  heard  a  sweeter  voice. 
But  how  Hannah  had  to  hush  the  unmannerly  surprise 
of  her  brood  of  quick-witted  youngsters  when  they  found 
out  that  elegant  Aunt  Ann  Mary  did  not  know  her  let 
ters,  and  had  never  heard  of  Julius  Caesar  or  Oliver 
Cromwell !  For  marriage  did  not  change  Ann  Mary  very 
much;  but  as  her  husband  was  perfectly  satisfied  with 
her,  I  dare  say  it  was  just  as  well. 


164  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

However,  when  the  Winthrop  cousins  begin  to  put  on 
airs,  and  to  talk  about  autograph  letters  from  Benjamin 
Franklin  and  Jefferson  addressed  to  their  great-great- 
great-grandmother,  and  to  show  beautiful  carved  fans  and 
lace  handkerchiefs  which  she  carried  at  State  balls  in 
Philadelphia  and  New  York,  I  have  to  bite  my  tongue  to 
keep  from  reminding  them  that  they  have  no  autograph 
letters  of  hers! 

Then  I  go  up  into  our  garret,  and  look  at  Hannah's 
shabby  old  books,  and  I  ride  over  to  the  place  on  the  road 
where  she  tended  the  fire  that  night,  and  I  think  of  the 
number  of  Hillsboro  boys  and  girls  to  whom  she  opened 
the  great  world  of  books,  and — somehow,  I  am  just  as 
well  pleased  that  it  was  not  the  lovely  Ann  Mary  who 
came  back  to  our  town  and  became  my  great-great-great- 
grandmother. 


THE   DELIVERER 

"  I  shall  not  die,  but  live ;  and  declare  the  works  of  the  Lord  " 

The  great  lady  pointed  with  a  sigh  of  pleasure  to 
the  canvas  hung  betzveen  a  Greuze  and  a  Watteau!  "Ah, 
is  there  anyone  like  LeMaury!  Alone  in  the  eighteenth 
century  he  had  eyes  for  the  world  of  wood  and  stream. 
You  poets  and  critics,  why  do  you  never  write  of  him? 
Is  it  true  that  no  one  knows  anything  of  his  life? ' 

The  young  writer  hesitated.  "  I  do  not  think  I  ex 
aggerate,  madame,  when  I  say  that  I  alone  in  Paris  know 
his  history.  He  was  a  compatriot  of  mine." 

"Oh,  come,  Mr.  Everett,  LeMaury  an  American! 
With  that  name! " 

"  He  called  himself  LeMaury  after  his  protector,  the 
man  who  brought  him  to  France.  His  real  name  was 
Everett,  like  my  own.  He  was  cousin  to  one  of  my  great 
grandfathers." 

"Ah,  an  old  family  story?  That  is  the  best  kind. 
You  must  tell  it  to  me." 

"  1  will  write  it  for  you,  madame" 

I 

At  the  foot  of  Hemlock  Mountain  spring  came  late 
that  year,  now  a  century  and  a  half  gone  by,  as  it  comes 
late  still  to  the  remote  back  valley,  lying  high  among  the 
Green  Mountains;  but  when  it  came  it  had  a  savor  of 
enchantment  unknown  to  milder  regions.  The  first  day 

165 


1 66  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

of  spring  was  no  uncertain  date  in  Hillsboro,  then  as  now. 
One  morning  generally  about  the  middle  of  May,  people 
woke  up  with  the  sun  shining  in  their  eyes,  and  the  feel 
ing  in  their  hearts  that  something  had  happened  in  the 
night.  The  first  one  of  the  family  dressed,  who  threw  open 
the  house-door,  felt  the  odor  of  stirring  life  go  to  his 
head,  were  he  the  Reverend  Mr.  Everett  himself.  In  the 
little  community  of  Puritans,  whose  isolation  had  pre 
served  intact  the  rigidity  of  faith  which  had  begun  to 
soften  somewhat  in  other  parts  of  New  England,  there 
was  no  one  who  openly  saluted  the  miracle  of  resurrection 
by  more  than  the  brief  remark,  "  Warm  weather's  come  "; 
but  sometimes  the  younger  men  went  back  and  kissed 
their  wives.  It  was  an  event,  the  first  day  of  spring,  in 
old-time  Hillsboro. 

In  the  year  of  our  Lord  1756  this  event  fell  upon  a 
Sabbath,  a  fact  which  the  Reverend  Mr.  Everett  com 
memorated  by  a  grim  look  out  at  the  budding  trees,  and 
by  taking  from  his  store  of  sermons  a  different  one  from 
that  he  had  intended  to  preach.  It  was  his  duty  to 
scourge  natural  man  out  of  the  flock  committed  to  his 
charge  by  an  angry  and  a  jealous  God,  and  he  had  felt 
deep  within  him  a  damnable  stirring  of  sensual  pleasure 
as  the  perfumed  breath  of  the  new  season  had  blown 
across  his  face.  If  the  anointed  of  the  Lord  had  thus 
yielded  to  the  insidious  wiles  of  unregenerate  nature  what 
greater  dangers  lay  in  wait  for  the  weaklings  under  his 
care!  The  face  of  his  son  Nathaniel,  as  he  came  back 
from  the  brook,  his  slender  body  leaning  sideways  from 
the  weight  of  the  dripping  bucket,  told  the  shepherd  of 
souls  that  he  must  be  on  his  guard  against  the  snares  of 
the  flesh. 


THE  DELIVERER  167 

The  boy's  thin,  dark  face,  so  astonishingly  like  his 
father's,  was  lifted  toward  the  sky  as  he  came  stumbling 
up  the  path,  but  his  eyes  were  everywhere  at  once.  Just 
before  he  reached  the  door,  he  set  the  bucket  down  with  a 
cry  of  ecstasy  and  darted  to  the  edge  of  the  garden, 
where  the  peas  were  just  thrusting  green  bowed  heads 
through  the  crumbling  earth.  He  knelt  above  them 
breathless,  he  looked  up  to  the  maple-twigs,  over  which  a 
faint  reddish  bloom  had  been  cast  in  the  night,  beyond  to 
the  lower  slopes  of  the  mountain,  delicately  patterned  with 
innumerable  white  stems  of  young  birch-trees,  and 
clasped  his  hands  to  see  that  a  shimmer  of  green  hung  in 
their  tops  like  a  mist.  His  lips  quivered,  he  laid  his 
hand  upon  a  tuft  of  grass  with  glossy,  lance-like  blades, 
and  stroked  it. 

His  father  came  to  the  door  and  called  him.  "  Na 
thaniel!" 

He  sprang  up  with  guilty  haste  and  went  toward  the 
house.  A  shriveling  change  of  expression  came  over  him. 

The  minister  began,  "A  wise  son  heareth  his  father's 
instructions;  but  a  scorner  heareth  not  rebuke." 

"  I  hear  you,  father." 

"  Why  did  you  linger  in  the  garden  and  forget  your 
duty?" 

"  I — I  cannot  tell  you,  father." 

"  Do  you  mean  you  do  not  know  why?  " 

"  I  cannot  say  I  do  not  know." 

"  Then  answer  me." 

Nathaniel  broke  out  desperately,  "  I  cannot,  father — 
I  know  no  words — I  was — it  is  so  warm — the  sun  shines 
— the  birches  are  out — I  was  glad " 

The  minister  bowed  his  head  sadly.     "  Aye,  even  as 


1 68  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

I  thought.  Sinful  lust  of  the  eye  draggeth  you  down  to 
destruction.  You  whose  salvation  even  now  hangs  in  the 
balance,  for  whose  soul  I  wrestle  every  night  in  prayer 
that  you  may  be  brought  to  the  conviction  of  sin,  '  you 
were  glad.'  Remember  the  words,  *  If  I  prefer  not  Jeru 
salem  above  my  chief  joy,  may  my  tongue  cleave  to  the 
roof  of  my  mouth.' ' 

Nathaniel  made  no  reply.  He  caught  at  the  door,  look 
ing  up  wretchedly  at  his  father.  When  the  minister 
turned  away  without  speaking  again,  he  drew  a  long 
breath  of  relief. 

Breakfast  was  always  a  silent  meal  in  the  Everett 
house,  but  on  Sabbath  mornings  the  silence  had  a  heavy 
significance.  The  preacher  was  beginning  then  to  work 
himself  up  to  the  pitch  of  storming  fervor  which  made 
his  sermons  so  notable,  and  his  wife  and  son  cowered 
under  the  unspoken  emanations  of  the  passion  which 
later  poured  so  terribly  from  the  pulpit.  The  Reverend 
Mr.  Everett  always  ate  very  heartily  on  Sabbath  morn 
ings,  but  Nathaniel  usually  pushed  his  plate  away. 

As  a  rule  he  walked  to  church  between  his  father  and 
his  mother,  like  a  little  child,  although  he  was  now  a  tall 
lad  of  sixteen,  but  to-day  he  was  sent  back  for  a  psalm- 
book,  forgotten  in  the  hurry  of  their  early  start.  When 
he  set  out  again  the  rest  of  the  village  folk  were  all  in 
the  meeting-house.  The  sight  of  the  deserted  street, 
walled  in  by  the  forest,  lying  drowsily  in  the  spring  sun 
shine,  was  like  balm  to  him.  He  loitered  along,  free  from 
observation,  his  eyes  shining.  A  fat,  old  negro  woman 
sat  on  a  doorstep  in  the  sun,  the  only  other  person  not 
in  meeting.  She  was  a  worn-out  slave,  from  a  Connecti 
cut  seaport,  who  had  been  thrown  in  for  good  measure 


THE  DELIVERER  169 

in  a  sharp  bargain  driven  by  the  leading  man  of  Hills- 
boro.  A  red  turban-like  cloth  was  bound  above  her  black 
face,  she  rested  her  puffy  black  arms  across  her  knees 
and  crooned  a  monotonous  refrain.  Although  the  vil 
lagers  regarded  her  as  imbecile,  they  thought  her  harm 
less,  and  Nathaniel  nodded  to  her  as  he  passed.  She 
gave  him  a  rich  laugh  and  a  "  Good  morrow,  Marse 
Natty,  good  morrow!" 

A  hen  clucking  to  her  chicks  went  across  the  road  be 
fore  him.  The  little  yellow  balls  ran  briskly  forward  on 
their  wiry  legs,  darting  at  invisible  insects,  turning  their 
shiny  black  eyes  about  alertly  and  filling  the  air  with  their 
sweet,  thin  pipings.  Nathaniel  stopped  to  watch  them, 
and  as  he  noticed  the  pompously  important  air  with 
which  one  of  the  tiny  creatures  scratched  the  ground  with 
his  ineffectual  little  feet,  cocking  his  eye  upon  the  spot 
afterward  as  if  to  estimate  the  amount  of  progress 
made,  the  boy  laughed  out  loud.  He  started  at  the  sound 
and  glanced  around  him  hurriedly,  moving  on  to  the 
meeting-house  from  which  there  now  burst  forth  a 
harshly  intoned  psalm.  He  lingered  for  a  moment  at 
the  door,  gazing  back  at  the  translucent  greens  of  the 
distant  birches  gleaming  against  the  black  pines.  A  gust 
of  air  perfumed  with  shad-blossom  blew  past  him,  and 
with  this  in  his  nostrils  he  entered  the  whitewashed  in- 
terior  and  made  his  way  on  tiptoe  up  the  bare  boards  of 
the  aisle. 


II 


After  meeting  the  women  and  children  walked  home 
to  set  out  the  cold  viands  for  the  Sabbath  dinner,  while 


170  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

the  men  stood  in  a  group  on  the  green  before  the  door  for 
a  few  minutes'  conversation. 

"  Verily,  Master  Everett,  the  breath  of  the  Almighty 
was  in  your  words  this  day  as  never  before,"  said  one 
of  them.  "  One  more  such  visitation  of  the  anger  of  God 
and  your  son  will  be  saved." 

"How  looked  he  when  they  bore  him  out?"  asked 
the  minister  faintly.  His  face  was  very  white. 

The  other  continued,  "  Truly,  reverend  sir,  your  set 
ting  forth  of  the  devil  lying  in  wait  for  the  thoughtless, 
and  the  lake  burning  with  brimstone,  did  almost  affright 
me  who  for  many  years  now  have  known  myself  to  be 
of  the  elect.  I  could  not  wonder  that  terrors  melted  the 
soul  of  your  son." 

"  How  looked  he  when  they  bore  him  out  ?  "  repeated 
the  minister  impatiently. 

The  other  answered  encouragingly,  "  More  like  death 
than  life,  so  the  women  say."  The  minister  waved  the 
men  aside  and  went  swiftly  down  the  street.  The  hen 
and  chickens  fled  with  shrill  cries  at  his  approach,  and 
the  old  negress  stopped  her  song.  After  he  had  passed 
she  chuckled  slowly  to  herself,  thrust  her  head  up  side 
ways  to  get  the  sun  in  a  new  place,  and  began  her  croon 
ing  chant  afresh. 

"  How  is  the  boy?"  asked  the  minister  of  his  wife 
as  he  stepped  inside  the  door.  "  Not  still  screaming  out 
and " 

Mistress  Everett  shook  her  head  reassuringly.  "  Nay, 
he  is  quiet  now,  up  in  his  room." 

Nathaniel  lay  on  his  trundle  bed,  his  eyes  fixed  on  the 
rafters,  his  pale  lips  drawn  back.  At  the  sight  his  father 
sat  down  heavily  on  the  edge  of  the  bed.  The  boy  sprang 


THE  DELIVERER  171 

upon  him  with  a  cry,  "  Oh,  father,  I  see  fire  always  there 
—last  winter  when  I  burned  my  finger — oh,  always  such 
pain !  " 

The  minister's  voice  broke  as  he  said,  "  Oh,  Nathaniel, 
the  blessed  ease  when  all  this  travail  is  gone  by  and  thou 
knowest  thyself  to  be  of  the  elect." 

Nathaniel  screamed  out  at  this,  a  fleck  of  froth  show 
ing  on  his  lips.  '  That  is  the  horrible  thing — I  know  I 
am  not  one  of  the  saved.  My  heart  is  all  full  of  carnal 
pleasures  and  desires.  To  look  at  the  sun  on  the  hill 
side — why  I  love  it  so  that  I  forget  my  soul — hell — 
God " 

His  father  gave  a  deep  shocked  groan  and  put  his 
hand  over  the  quivering  lips.  "  Be  not  a  bitterness  to 
him  that  begot  you.  Hush !  " 

The  fever  of  excitement  left  the  boy  and  he  fell  down 
with  his  face  in  the  pillow  to  lie  there  motionless  until 
his  parents  went  out  for  second  meeting,  leaving  him 
alone  in  the  house.  "  Confidence  must  be  rooted  out  of 
his  tabernacle,"  said  his  father  sternly.  "  The  spirit  of 
God  is  surely  working  in  his  heart  in  which  I  see  many 
of  my  own  besetting  sins." 

Nathaniel  sprang  up,  when  he  heard  the  door  shut,  with 
a  distracted  idea  of  escape,  now  that  his  jailers  were 
away,  and  felt  an  icy  stirring  in  the  roots  of  his  hair 
at  the  realization  that  his  misery  lay  within,  that  the 
walls  of  his  own  flesh  and  blood  shut  it  inexorably  into 
his  heart  forever.  He  threw  open  the  window  and  leaned 
out. 

The  old  negress  came  out  of  the  woods  at  the  other 
end  of  the  street,  her  turban  gleaming  red.  She  moved 
in  a  cautious  silence  past  the  meeting-house,  but  when 


172  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

she  came  opposite  the  minister's  house,  thinking  herself 
alone,  she  burst  into  a  gay,  rapid  song,  the  words  of 
which  she  so  mutilated  in  her  barbarous  accent  that  only 
a  final  "Oh,  Molly-oh!"  could  be  distinguished.  She 
carried  an  herb-basket  on  her  arm  now,  into  which,  from 
time  to  time,  she  looked  with  great  satisfaction. 

Nathaniel  ran  down  the  stairs  and  out  of  the  door 
calling.  She  paused,  startled.  "  How  can  you  sing  and 
laugh  and  walk  so  lightly?"  he  cried  out. 

She  cocked  her  head  on  one  side  with  her  turtle-like 
motion.  "  Why  should  she  not  sing?  "  she  asked  in  her 
thick,  sweet  voice.  She  had  never  learned  the  difference 
betwen  the  pronouns.  "  She's  be'n  gatherin'  yarbs  in  the 
wood,  an'  th'  sun  is  warm,"  she  blinked  at  it  rapidly, 
"  an'  the  winter  it  is  pas',  Marse  Natty,  no  mo'  winter!  " 

Nathaniel  came  close  up  to  her,  laying  his  thin  fingers 
on  her  fat,  black  arm.  His  voice  quivered.  "  But  they 
say  if  you  love  those  things  and  if  they  make  you  glad  you 
are  damned  to  everlasting  brimstone  fire.  Tell  me  how 
you  dare  to  laugh,  so  that  I  will  dare  too." 

The  old  woman  laughed,  opening  her  mouth  so  widely 
that  the  red  lining  to  her  throat  showed  moistly,  and  all 
her  fat  shook  on  her  bones,  "  Lord  love  ye,  chile,  dat's 
white  folks'  talk.  Dat  don't  scare  a  old  black  woman!  " 
She  shifted  her  basket  to  the  other  arm  and  prepared  to 
go  on.  "  You're  bleeged  to  be  keerful  'bout  losin'  yo' 
soul.  Black  folks  ain't  got  no  souls,  bless  de  Lord! 
When  dey  dies  dey  dies!" 

She  shuffled  along,  laughing,  and  began  to  sing  again. 
Nathaniel  looked  after  her  with  burning  eyes.  After  she 
had  disappeared  between  the  tree  trunks  of  the  forest, 
the  breeze  bore  back  to  him  a  last  joyous  whoop  of  "  Ohf 


THE  DELIVERER  173 

Molly-oh!  "    He  burst  into  sobs,  and  shivering,  made  his 
way  back  into  his  father's  darkening,  empty  house. 


Ill 

At  the  breakfast  table  the  next  morning  his  father 
looked  at  him  neutrally.  "  This  day  you  shall  go  to  salt 
the  sheep  in  the  Miller  lot,"  he  announced,  "  and  you  may 
have  until  the  hour  before  sundown  to  walk  in  the  wood." 

"  Oh,  father,  really!" 

"  That  is  what  I  said,"  repeated  the  minister  dryly, 
pushing  away  from  the  table. 

After  the  boy  had  gone,  carrying  the  bag  of  salt  and 
the  little  package  of  his  noonday  meal,  the  minister  sighed 
heavily.  "  I  fear  my  weak  heart  inclines  me  to  too  great 
softness  to  our  son."  To  his  wife  he  cried  out  a  moment 
later,  "  Oh,  that  some  instance  of  the  wrath  of  Jehovah 
could  come  before  us  now,  while  our  son's  spirit  is  soft 
ened.  Deacon  Truitt  said  yesterday  that  one  more  visita 
tion  would  save  him." 

Nathaniel  walked  along  soberly,  his  eyes  on  the  road 
at  his  feet,  his  face  quite  pale,  a  sleepless  night  evidently 
behind  him.  He  came  into  the  birches  without  noticing 
them  at  first,  and  when  he  looked  up  he  was  for  a  moment 
so  taken  by  surprise  that  he  was  transfigured.  The  val 
ley  at  his  feet  shimmered  like  an  opal  through  the  slender 
white  pillars  of  the  trees.  The  wood  was  like  a  many- 
columned  chapel,  unroofed  and  open  to  the  sunlight 
Nathaniel  gave  a  cry  of  rapture,  and  dropped  the  bag  of 
salt.  "  Oh!  "  he  cried,  stretching  out  his  arms,  and  then 
again,  "Oh!" 

For  a  moment  he  stood  so,  caught  into  a  joy  that  was 


174  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

almost  anguish,  and  then  at  a  sudden  thought  he  shrank 
together,  his  arm  crooked  over  his  eyes.  He  sank  for 
ward,  still  covering  his  eyes,  into  a  great  bed  of  fern,  just 
beginning  to  unroll  their  whitey-green  balls  into  long, 
pale  plumes.  There  he  lay  as  still  as  if  he  were  dead. 

Two  men  came  riding  through  the  lane,  their  horses 
treading  noiselessly  over  the  leaf -mold.  They  had  almost 
passed  the  motionless,  prostrate  figure  when  the  older 
reined  in  and  pointed  with  his  v/hip.  "  What  is  that,  Le- 
Maury?" 

At  the  unexpected  sound  the  boy  half  rose,  showing  a 
face  so  convulsed  that  the  other  horseman  cried  out 
alarmed,  "  It  ees  a  man  crazed !  Ride  on,  mon  colonel!  " 
He  put  spurs  to  his  horse  and  sprang  forward  as  he 
spoke. 

The  old  soldier  laughed  a  little,  and  turned  to  Nathan 
iel.  "  Why,  'tis  the  minister  his  son.  I  know  you  by  the 
look  of  your  father  in  you.  What  bad  dream  have  we 
waked  you  from,  you  pretty  boy?" 

"  You  have  not  waked  me  from  it,"  cried  Nathaniel. 
"  I  will  never  wake  as  long  as  I  live,  and  when  I 
die !" 

"  Why,  LeMaury  is  right.  The  poor  lad  is  crazed. 
We  must  see  to  this." 

He  swung  himself  stiffly  from  the  saddle  and  came 
limping  up  to  Nathaniel.  Kneeling  by  the  boy  he  brought 
him  up  to  a  sitting  position,  and  at  the  sight  of  the  ashen 
face  and  white,  turned-back  eyeballs  he  sat  down  hastily, 
drawing  the  young  head  upon  his  shoulder  with  a  rough 
tenderness.  "  Why,  so  lads  look  under  their  first  fire, 
when  they  die  of  fear.  What  frights  you  so?  " 

Nathaniel  opened  great  solemn  eyes  upon  him.     "  I 


THE  DELIVERER  175 

suppose  it  is  the  conviction  of  sin.     That  is  what  they 
call  it." 

For  an  instant  the  old  man's  face  was  blank  with  as 
tonishment,  and  then  it  wrinkled  into  a  thousand  lines  of 
mirth.  He  began  to  laugh  as  though  he  would  never  stop. 
Nathaniel  had  never  heard  anyone  laugh  like  that.  He 
clutched  at  the  old  man. 

"  How  dare  you  laugh !  " 

The  other  wiped  his  eyes  and  rocked  to  and  fro,  "  I 
laugh — who  would  not — that  such  a  witless  baby  should 
talk  of  his  sin.  You  know  not  what  sin  is,  you  silly  inno 
cent!" 

At  the  kindliness  of  the  tone  an  aching  knot  in  the 
boy's  throat  relaxed.  He  began  to  talk  hurriedly,  in  a 
desperate  whisper,  his  hands  like  little  birds'  claws  grip 
ping  the  other's  great  gauntleted  fist.  "  You  do  not  know 
how  wicked  I  am — I  am  so  wholly  froward  the  wonder 
is  the  devil  does  not  take  me  at  once.  I  live  only  in  what 
my  father  calls  the  lust  of  the  eye.  I — I  would  rather 
look  at  a  haw-tree  in  bloom  than  meditate  on  the  Al 
mighty!  "  He  brought  out  this  awful  confession  with  a 
gasp  at  its  enormity,  but  hurried  on  to  a  yet  more  ter 
rible  climax.  "  I  cannot  be  righteous,  but  many  times 
there  are  those  who  cannot — but  oh,  worse  than  that,  I 
cannot  even  wish  to  be !  I  can  only  wish  to  be  a  painter." 

At  this  unexpected  ending  the  old  man  gave  an  ex 
clamation  of  extreme  amazement. 

"  But,  boy,  lad,  what's  your  name?  However  did  you 
learn  that  there  are  painters  in  the  world,  here  in  this 
prison-house  of  sanctity?" 

Nathaniel  had  burrowed  into  his  protector's  coat  as 
though  hiding  from  the  imminent  wrath  of  God.  He  now 


i;6  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

spoke  in  muffled  tones.  "  Two  years  ago,  when  I  was 
but  a  little  child,  there  came  a  man  to  our  town,  a  French 
man,  they  said,  and  his  horse  fell  lame,  and  he  stopped 
two  days  at  my  Uncle  Elzaphan's.  My  Uncle  Elzaphan 
asked  him  what  business  did  he  in  the  world,  and  he  said 
he  put  down  on  cloth  or  paper  with  brushes  and  colors 
all  the  fair  and  comely  things  he  saw.  And  he  showed 
a  piece  of  paper  with  on  it  painted  the  row  of  willows 
along  our  brook.  I  sat  in  the  chimney-corner  and  no  one 
heeded  me.  I  saw — oh,  then  I  knew!  I  have  no  paint, 
but  ever  since  I  have  made  pictures  with  burnt  sticks  on 
birchbark — though  my  father  says  that  of  all  the  evil  ways 
of  evil  men  none  lead  down  more  swift  to  the  chambers 
of  death  and  the  gates  of  hell  than  that.  Every  night 
I  make  a  vow  unto  the  Lord  that  I  will  sin  no  more; 
but  in  the  morning  the  devil  whispers  in  my  ear  and  I  rise 
up  and  sin  again — no  man  knows  this — and  I  am  never 
glad  unless  I  think  I  have  done  well  with  my  pictures, 

and  I  hate  the  meeting-house  and His  voice  died 

away  miserably. 

"Two  years  ago,  was't?"  asked  the  old  man.  "And 
the  man  was  French?" 

"  Aye." 

The  old  soldier  shifted  his  position,  stretched  out  a  stiff 
knee  with  a  grimace  of  pain,  and  pulled  the  tall  lad  bodily 
into  his  lap  like  a  child.  For  some  time  the  two  were 
silent,  the  sun  shining  down  warmly  on  them  through  the 
faint,  vaporous  green  of  the  tiny  leaves.  The  old  horse 
cropped  the  young  shoots  with  a  contented,  ruminative 
air,  once  in  a  while  pausing  to  hang  his  head  drowsily, 
and  bask  motionless  in  the  warmth. 

Then  the  old  man  began  to  speak  in  a  serious  tone, 


THE  DELIVERER  177 

quite  different  from  his  gentle  laughter.  "  Young  Ev 
erett,  of  all  the  people  you  have  seen,  is  there  one  whom 
you  would  wish  to  have  even  a  moment  of  the  tortures 
of  hell?" 

Nathaniel  looked  at  him  horrified.  "Why,  no!"  he 
cried  indignantly. 

"  Then  do  you  think  your  God  less  merciful  than  you?  " 

Nathaniel  stared  long  into  the  steady  eyes.  "  Oh,  do 
you  mean  it  is  not  true?''  He  leaned  close  in  an  agony 
of  hope.  "  Sometimes  I  have  thought  it  could  not  be 
true!" 

The  old  soldier  struck  him  on  the  shoulder  inspirit- 
ingly,  his  weather-beaten  face  very  grave.  "  Aye,  lad,  I 
mean  it  is  not  true.  I  am  an  old  man  and  I  have  learned 
that  they  lie  who  say  it  is  true.  There  is  no  hell  but  in 
our  own  hearts  when  we  do  evil;  and  we  can  escape  a 
way  out  of  that  by  repenting  and  doing  good.  There 
is  no  devil  but  our  evil  desires,  and  God  gives  to  every 
man  strength  to  fight  with  those.  There  is  only  good  in 
your  love  for  the  fair  things  God  made  and  put  into  the 
world  for  us  to  love.  No  man  but  only  your  own  heart 
can  tell  you  what  is  wrong  and  what  is  right.  Only  do 
not  fear,  for  all  is  well." 

The  scene  was  never  to  fade  from  Nathaniel  Everett's 
eyes.  In  all  the  after  crises  of  his  life  the  solemn  words 
rang  in  his  ears. 

The  old  man  suddenly  smiled  at  him,  all  quaint  drol 
lery  again.  "  And  now  wait."  He  put  hand  to  mouth 
and  hallooed  down  the  lane.  "  Ho  there !  LeMaury !  " 

As  the  Frenchman  came  into  sight,  the  old  man  turned 
to  Nathaniel,  "  Is  this  the  gentleman  who  painted  your 
willows?  " 


178  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

"  Oh,  aye !  "  cried  Nathaniel. 

The  Frenchman  dismounted  near  them  with  sparkling 
glances  of  inquiry.  "  See,  LeMaury,  this  is  young  Mas 
ter  Everett,  whom  you  have  bewitched  with  your  paint- 
pots.  He  would  fain  be  an  artist — de  giistibus !  Per 
haps  you  have  in  him  an  apprentice  for  your  return  to 
France." 

The  artist  looked  sharply  at  Nathaniel.  "  Eh,  so? 
Can  young  master  draw?  Doth  he  know  aught  of  chi 
aroscuro?" 

Nathaniel  blushed  at  his  ignorance  and  looked  timidly 
at  his  protector. 

"  Nay,  he  knows  naught  of  your  painter's  gibberish. 
Give  him  a  crayon  and  a  bit  of  white  bark  and  see  can  he 
make  my  picture.  I'll  lean  my  head  back  and  fold  my 
hands  to  sleep." 

In  the  long  sunny  quiet  that  followed,  the  old  man 
really  slipped  away  into  a  light  doze,  from  which  he  was 
awakened  by  a  loud  shout  from  LeMaury.  The  French 
man  had  sprung  upon  Nathaniel  and  was  kissing  his 
cheeks,  which  were  now  crimson  with  excitement.  "  Oh, 
it  is  Giotto  come  back  again.  He  shall  be  anything — 
Watteau." 

Nathaniel  broke  away  and  ran  toward  the  old  man, 
his  eyes  blazing  with  hope. 

"What  does  he  mean?"  he  demanded. 

"  He  means  that  you're  to  be  a  painter  and  naught 
else,  though  how  a  man  can  choose  to  daub  paint 
when  there  are  swords  to  be  carried — well,  well," 
he  pulled  himself  painfully  to  his  feet,  wincing  at 
gouty  twinges,  "  I  will  go  and  see  your  father 
about " 


THE  DELIVERER  179 

"Mais,  Colonel  Hall,  dites!  How  can  I  arrange  not 
to  lose  this  pearl  among  artists? " 

At  the  name,  for  he  had  not  understood  the  title  be 
fore,  pronounced  as  it  was  in  French,  the  boy  fell  back 
in  horrified  recognition.  "  Oh !  you  are  Colonel  Gideon 
Hall ! " 

"  Aye,  lad,  who  else?  "  The  old  soldier  swung  himself 
up  to  the  saddle,  groaning,  "  Oh,  damn  that  wet  ground ! 
I  fear  I  cannot  sit  the  nag  home." 

"  But  then  you  are  the  enemy  of  God — the  chosen  one 
of  Beelzebub " 

"  Do  they  call  me  that  in  polite  and  pious  Hillsboro?  " 

The  Frenchman  broke  in,  impatient  of  this  incompre 
hensible  talk.  "  See,  boy,  you — Everett — I  go  back  to 
France  now  soon.  I  lie  next  Friday  night  at  Woodburn. 
If  you  come  to  me  there  we  will  go  together  to  France — 
to  Paris — you  will  be  the  great  artist " 

He  was  silenced  by  a  gesture  from  the  colonel,  who 
now  sat  very  straight  on  his  horse  and  beckoned  to  Na 
thaniel.  The  boy  came  timorously.  "  You  have  heard 
lies  about  me,  Everett.  Be  man  enough  to  trust  your  own 
heart."  He  broke  into  a  half -sad  little  laugh  at  Na 
thaniel's  face  of  fascinated  repulsion. 

"  You  can  laugh  now,"  whispered  the  boy,  close  at  his 
knee,  "  but  when  you  come  to  die?  Why,  even  my  father 
trembles  at  the  thought  of  death.  Oh,  if  I  could  but  be 
lieve  you !  " 

"  Faugh !  To  fear  death  when  one  has  done  his 
best!" 

He  had  turned  his  horse's  head,  but  Nathaniel  called 
after  him,  bringing  out  the  awful  words  with  an  effort. 
"  But  they  say — that  you  do  not  believe  in  God." 


i8o  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

The  colonel  laughed  again.  "  Why,  lad,  I'm  the  only 
man  in  this  damn  town  who  does."  He  put  his  horse 
into  a  trot  and  left  Nathaniel  under  the  birch-trees,  the 
sun  high  over  his  head,  the  bag  of  salt  forgotten  at  his 
feet. 


IV 

A  little  before  sundown  the  next  day  the  minister 
strode  into  his  house,  caught  up  his  Bible,  and  called 
to  his  wife,  "  Deborah,  the  Lord  hath  answered  me  in 
my  trouble.  Call  Nathaniel  and  bring  him  after  me  to 
the  house  of  Gideon  Hall." 

Mistress  Everett  fell  back,  her  hand  at  her  heart,  "  To 
that  house?" 

"  Aye,  even  there.  He  lieth  at  the  point  of  death. 
So  are  the  wicked  brought  into  desolation.  Yesterday, 
as  he  rode  in  the  wood,  his  horse  cast  him  down  so  that 
it  is  thought  he  may  not  live  till  dark.  I  am  sent  for 
by  his  pious  sisters  to  wrestle  with  him  in  prayer.  Oh, 
Deborah,  now  is  the  time  to  strike  the  last  blow  for  the 
salvation  of  our  son.  Let  him  see  how  the  devil  carries 
off  the  transgressor  into  the  fires  of  hell,  or  let  him  see 
how,  at  the  last,  the  proudest  must  make  confession  of 
his  wicked  unbelief " 

He  hurled  himself  through  the  door  like  a  javelin, 
while  his  wife  turned  to  explain  to  Nathaniel  the  reason 
for  the  minister's  putting  on  his  Sabbath  voice  of  a 
week-day  morning.  He  cried  out  miserably,  "  Oh, 
mother,  don't  make  me  go  there !  " 

"  Nay,  Nathaniel,  there  is  naught  new.  You  have 
been  with  us  before  to  many  a  sickbed  and  seen  many  a 


THE  DELIVERER  181 

righteous  death.  This  is  an  ill  man,  whose  terrors  at 
the  reward  of  his  unbelief  will  be  like  goodly  medicine 
to  your  sick  soul,  and  teach  you  to  lay  hold  on  righteous 
ness  while  there  is  yet  time." 

"But,  mother,  my  Uncle  Elzaphan  said — I  asked  him 
this  morning  about  Colonel  Hall — that  he  had  done 
naught  but  good  to  all  men,  that  he  had  fought  bravely 
with  French  and  Indians,  that  the  poor  had  half  of  his 
goods,  that " 

She  took  him  by  the  hand  and  dragged  him  relent 
lessly  out  upon  the  street.  "  Your  Uncle  Elzaphan  is  a 
man  of  no  understanding,  and  does  not  know  that  the 
devil  has  no  more  subtile  lure  than  a  man  who  does  good 
works  but  who  is  not  of  the  true  faith.  Aye,  he  maketh 
a  worse  confusion  to  the  simple  than  he  who  worketh 
iniquity  by  noonday." 

She  led  him  through  the  village  street,  through  a  long 
curving  lane  where  he  had  never  been  before,  and  down 
an  avenue  of  maple-trees  to  a  house  at  which  he  had  al 
ways  been  forbidden  even  to  look.  Various  of  the  neigh 
bor  women  were  hurrying  along  in  the  same  direction. 
As  they  filed  up  the  stairs  he  trembled  to  hear  his  father's 
voice  already  raised  in  the  terrible  tones  of  one  of  his 
inspired  hours.  At  the  entrance  to  the  sick  chamber  he 
clung  for  a  moment  to  the  door,  gazing  at  the  wild-eyed 
women  who  knelt  about  the  room,  their  frightened  eyes 
fixed  on  his  father.  His  knees  shook  under  him.  He 
had  a  qualm  of  nausea  at  the  slimy  images  of  corrup 
tion  and  decay  which  the  minister  was  trumpeting  forth 
as  the  end  to  all  earthly  pride. 

His  mother  pushed  him  inexorably  forward  into  the 
room,  and  then,  across  the  nightmare  of  frenzy,  he  met 


182  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

the  calm  gaze  of  the  dying  man.  It  was  the  turning- 
point  of  his  life. 

He  ran  to  the  bed,  falling  on  his  knees,  clasping  the 
great  knotty  hand  and  searching  the  eyes  which  were 
turned  upon  him,  gently  smiling.  The  minister,  well 
pleased  with  this  evidence  of  his  son's  emotion,  caught 
his  breath  for  another  flight  of  eloquence  which  should 
sear  and  blast  the  pretensions  of  good  works  as  opposed 
to  the  true  faith.  "  See  how  low  the  Lord  layeth  the  man 
who  thinks  to  bargain  with  the  Almighty,  and  to  ransom 
his  soul  from  hell  by  deeds  which  are  like  dust  and  ashes 
to  Jehovah." 

Nathaniel  crept  closer  and  whispered  under  cover  of 
his  father's  thunderings,  "  Oh,  you  are  truly  not  afraid?  " 

The  dying  man  looked  at  him,  his  eyes  as  steady  as 
when  they  were  in  the  woods.  "  Nay,  little  comrade,  it 
is  all  a  part  of  life." 

After  that  he  seemed  to  sink  into  partial  unconscious 
ness.  Nathaniel  felt  his  hand  grow  colder,  but  he  still 
held  it,  grasping  it  more  tightly  when  he  felt  the  fumes 
of  his  father's  reeking  eloquence  mount  to  his  brain. 
The  women  were  all  sobbing  aloud.  A  young  girl  was 
writhing  on  the  floor,  her  groans  stifled  by  her  mother's 
hand.  The  air  of  the  room  was  stifling  with  hysteria. 
The  old  sister  of  the  dying  man  called  out,  "  Oh,  quick, 
Master  Everett.  He  is  going.  Exhort  him  now  to  give 
us  some  token  that  at  the  last  he  repents  of  his  unbelief." 

The  minister  whirled  about,  shaking  with  his  own  vio 
lence.  The  sweat  was  running  down  his  face.  "  Gideon 
Hall,  I  charge  you  to  say  if  you  repent  of  your  sins." 

There  was  a  pause.     The  silence  was  suffocating. 

The  old  man  gradually  aroused  himself  from  his  torpor, 


THE  DELIVERER  183 

although  he  did  not  open  his  eyes.  "  Aye,  truly  I  repent 
me  of  my  sins,"  he  whispered  mildly,  "  for  any  unkind- 
ness  done  to  any  man,  or " 

The  minister  broke  in,  his  voice  mounting  shrilly, 
"  Nay,  not  so,  thou  subtle  mocker.  Dost  thou  repent  thee 
of  thy  unbelief  in  the  true  faith?" 

Colonel  Gideon  Hall  opened  his  eyes.  He  turned  his 
head  slowly  on  the  pillow  until  he  faced  the  preacher, 
and  at  the  sight  of  his  terrible  eyes  and  ecstatic  pallor  he 
began  to  laugh  whimsically,  as  he  had  laughed  in  the 
wood  with  Nathaniel.  "Why,  man,  I  thought  you  did 
but  frighten  women  with  it — not  yourself  too.  Nay,  do 
not  trouble  about  me.  I  don't  believe  in  your  damned 
little  hell." 

The  smile  on  his  face  gradually  died  away  into  a  still 
serenity,  which  was  there  later,  when  the  minister  lifted 
his  son  away  from  the  dead  man's  bed. 


The  four  old  men  walked  sturdily  forward  with  their 
burden,  although  at  intervals  they  slipped  their  tall  staves 
under  the  corners  and  rested,  wiping  their  foreheads 
and  breathing  hard.  As  they  stood  thus  silent,  where  the 
road  passed  through  a  thicket  of  sumac,  a  boy  came 
rapidly  around  the  curve  and  was  upon  them  before  he 
saw  that  he  was  not  alone.  He  stopped  short  and  made 
a  guilty  motion  to  hide  a  bundle  that  he  carried.  The 
old  men  stared  at  him,  and  reassured  by  this  absence  of 
recognition  he  advanced  slowly,  looking  curiously  at  the 
great  scarlet  flag  which  hung  in  heavy  folds  from  their 
burden. 


1 84  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

"  Is  this  the  road  to  Woodburn  ?  "  he  asked  them. 

"  Aye,"  they  answered  briefly. 

He  had  almost  passed  them  when  he  stopped  again, 
drawing  in  his  breath.  "  Oh,  are  you — is  this  Colo 
nel " 

"  Aye,  lad,"  said  the  oldest  of  the  bearers,  "  this  is  the 
funeral  procession  of  the  best  commander  and  truest  man 
who  ever  lived." 

"  But  why "  began  the  boy,  looking  at  the  flag. 

"  He's  wrapped  in  the  flag  of  the  king  that  he  was  a 
loyal  servant  to,  because  the  damned  psalm-singing  hypo 
crites  in  the  town  where  he  lived  of  late  would  not  make 
a  coffin  for  him — no,  nor  allow  ground  to  bury  him — 
no,  nor  men  to  bear  him  out  to  his  grave !  We  be  men 
who  have  served  under  him  in  three  wars,  and  we  come 
from  over  the  mountain  to  do  the  last  service  for  him. 
He  saved  our  lives  for  us  more  than  once — brave  Colonel 
Gid!" 

They  all  uncovered  at  the  name,  and  the  boy  shyly  and 
awkwardly  took  his  cap  off. 

"  May  I — may  I  see  him  once  again?  "  he  asked,  drop 
ping  his  bundle.  "  He  saved  my  life  too." 

Two  men  put  their  gnarled  old  hands  to  the  flag  and 
drew  it  down  from  the  head  of  the  bier.  The  boy  did 
not  speak,  but  he  went  nearer  and  nearer  with  an  ex 
pression  on  his  face  which  one  of  the  old  men  answered 
aloud.  "  Aye,  is  he  not  at  peace !  God  grant  we  may 
all  look  so  when  the  time  comes." 

They  let  the  flag  fall  over  the  dead  face  again,  set 
their  shoulders  to  the  bier,  and  moved  forward,  bring 
ing  down  their  great  staves  rhythmically  as  they  walked. 
The  boy  stood  still  looking  after  them.  When  they  passed 


THE  DELIVERER  185 

out  into  the  sunshine  of  the  open  hillside  he  ran  to  the 
edge  of  the  thicket  so  that  he  could  still  follow  them  with 
his  eyes.  They  plodded  on,  growing  smaller  and  smaller 
in  the  distance,  until  as  they  paused  on  the  crest  of  the 
hill  only  a  spot  of  red  could  be  seen,  brilliant  against  the 
brilliant  sky. 

The  boy  went  back  and  picked  up  his  bundle.  When 
he  returned  to  the  edge  of  the  thicket  the  spot  of  red  was 
disappearing  over  the  hill.  He  took  off  his  cap  and  stood 
there  until  there  was  nothing  before  him  but  the  sun  shin 
ing  on  the  hillside. 

Then  he  turned  about,  and  walking  steadily,  Nathan 
iel  Everett  entered  into  his  own  world. 


NOCTES  AMBROSIANAE 

From  Hemlock  Mountain's  barren  crest 
The  roaring  gale  flies  down  the  west 
And  drifts  the  snow  on  Redmount's  breast 
In  hollows  dark  with  pine. 

Full  in  its  path  from  hill  to  hill 
There  stands,  beside  a  ruined  mill, 
A  lonely  house,  above  whose  sill 
A  brace  of  candles  shine. 

And  there  an  ancient  bachelor 
And  maiden  sister,  full  three-score, 
Sit  all  forgetful  of  the  roar 

Of  wind  and  mountain  stream; 

Forgot  the  wind,  forgot  the  snow, 
What  magic  airs  about  them  blow  ? 
They  read,  in  wondering  voices  low, 
The  Midsummer  Night's  Dream! 

And,  reading,  past  their  frozen  hill 
In  charmed  woods  they  range  at  will 
And  hear  the  horns  of  Oberon  shrill 
Above  the  plunging  Tam; — 

Yea,  long  beyond  the  cock's  first  crow 
In  dreams  they  walk  where  windflowers  blow ; 
Late  do  they  dream,  and  liker  grow 
To  Charles  and  Mary  Lamb. 


HILLSBORO'S  GOOD  LUCK 

WHEN  the  news  of  Hillsboro's  good  fortune  swept 
along  the  highroad  there  was  not  a  person  in  the  other 
three  villages  of  the  valley  who  did  not  admit  that  Hills- 
boro  deserved  it.  Everyone  said  that  in  this  case  Provi 
dence  had  rewarded  true  merit,  Providence  being  repre 
sented  by  Mr.  Josiah  Camden,  king  of  the  Chicago  wheat 
pit,  whose  carelessly  bestowed  bounty  meant  the  happy 
termination  of  Hillsboro's  long  and  arduous  struggles. 

The  memory  of  man  could  not  go  back  to  the  time 
when  that  town  had  not  had  a  public  library.  It  was  the 
pride  of  the  remote  village,  lost  among  the  Green  Moun 
tains,  that  long  before  Carnegie  ever  left  Scotland  there 
had  been  a  collection  of  books  free  to  all  in  the  wing  of 
Deacon  Bradlaugh's  house.  Then  as  now  the  feat  was 
achieved  by  the  united  efforts  of  all  inhabitants.  They 
boasted  that  the  town  had  never  been  taxed  a  cent  to  keep 
up  the  library,  that  not  a  person  had  contributed  a  single 
penny  except  of  his  own  free  will;  and  it  was  true  that 
the  public  spirit  of  the  village  concentrated  itself  most 
harmoniously  upon  this  favorite  feature  of  their  common 
life.  Political  strife  might  rage  in  the  grocery-stores, 
religious  differences  flame  high  in  the  vestibule  of  the 
church,  and  social  distinctions  embitter  the  Ladies'  Club, 
but  the  library  was  a  neutral  ground  where  all  parties 
met,  united  by  a  common  and  disinterested  effort. 

Like  all  disinterested  and  generous  actions  it  brought 

187 


1 88  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

its  own  reward.  The  great  social  event  of  the  year,  not 
only  for  Hillsboro,  but  for  all  the  outlying  towns  of 
Woodville,  Green  ford,  and  Windfield,  was  the  annual 
"  Entertainment  for  buying  new  books,"  as  it  was  named 
on  the  handbills  which  were  welcomed  so  eagerly  by  the 
snow-bound,  monotony-ridden  inhabitants  of  the  Necron- 
sett  Valley.  It  usually  "  ran  "  three  nights  so  that  every 
one  could  get  there,  the  people  from  over  Hemlock  Moun 
tain  driving  twenty  miles.  There  was  no  theater  for  forty 
miles,  and  many  a  dweller  on  the  Hemlock  slopes  had 
never  seen  a  nearer  approach  to  one  than  the  town  hall 
of  Hillsboro  on  the  great  nights  of  the  "  Library  Show." 

As  for  Hillsboro  itself,  the  excitement  of  one  effort 
was  scarcely  over  before  plans  for  the  next  year's  were 
begun.  Although  the  date  was  fixed  by  tradition  on  the 
three  days  after  Candlemas  (known  as  "  Woodchuck 
Day"  in  the  valley),  they  had  often  decided  what  the 
affair  should  be  and  had  begun  rehearsals  before  the 
leaves  had  turned  in  the  autumn.  There  was  no  corner 
of  the  great  world  of  dramatic  art  they  had  not  explored, 
borne  up  to  the  loftiest  regions  of  endeavor  by  their 
touchingly  unworldly  ignorance  of  their  limitations.  As 
often  happens  in  such  cases  they  believed  so  ingenuously 
in  their  own  capacities  that  their  faith  wrought  miracles. 

Sometimes  they  gave  a  cantata,  sometimes  a  nigger- 
minstrel  show.  The  year  the  interior  of  the  town  hall 
was  changed,  they  took  advantage  of  the  time  before 
either  the  first  or  second  floor  was  laid,  and  attempted 
and  achieved  an  indoor  circus.  And  the  year  that  an 
orchestra  conductor  from  Albany  had  to  spend  the  win 
ter  in  the  mountains  for  his  lungs,  they  presented  // 
Trovatore.  Everybody  sang,  as  a  matter  of  course,  and 


HILLSBORO'S  GOOD  LUCK  189 

those  whose  best  efforts  in  this  direction  brought  them  no 
glory  had  their  innings  the  year  it  was  decided  to  give 
a  play. 

They  had  done  East  Lynne  and  Hamlet,  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin  and  Macbeth,  and  every  once  in  a  while  the  local 
literary  man,  who  was  also  the  undertaker,  wrote  a  play 
based  on  local  traditions.  Of  course  they  gave  The  Vil 
lage  School  and  Memory's  Garland,  and  if  you  don't  re 
member  those  delectable  home-made  entertainments,  so 
much  the  worse  for  you.  It  is  true  that  in  the  allegorical 
tableau  at  the  end  of  Memory's  Garland  the  wreath, 
which  was  of  large  artificial  roses,  had  been  made  of 
such  generous  proportions  that  when  the  Muses  placed 
it  on  the  head  of  slender  Elnathan  Pritchett,  representing 
'  The  Poet,"  it  slipped  over  his  ears,  down  over  his  nar 
row  shoulders,  and  sliding  rapidly  toward  the  floor  was 
only  caught  by  him  in  time  to  hold  it  in  place  upon  his 
stomach.  That  happened  only  on  the  first  night,  of 
course.  The  other  performances  it  was  perfect,  lodging 
on  his  ears  with  the  greatest  precision. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  the  responsi 
bilities  of  Hillsboro  for  the  library  ended  with  the  tri 
umphant  counting  out  of  the  money  after  the  entertain 
ment.  This  sum,  the  only  actual  cash  ever  handled  by 
the  committee,  was  exclusively  devoted  to  the  purchase 
of  new  books.  It  was  the  pride  of  the  village  that  every 
thing  else  was  cared  for  without  price,  by  their  own  en 
terprise,  public  spirit,  and  ingenuity.  When  the  books 
had  overflowed  the  wing  of  Deacon  Bradlaugh's  house, 
back  in  1869,  they  were  given  free  lodging  in  the  rooms 
of  the  then  newly  established  and  flourishing  Post  of  the 
G.  A.  R.  In  1896  they  burst  from  this  chrysalis  into 


igo  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

the  whole  lower  floor  of  the  town  hall,  newly  done  over 
for  the  purpose.  From  their  shelves  here  the  books 
looked  down  benignly  on  church  suppers  and  sociables, 
and 'even  an  occasional  dance.  It  was  the  center  of  vil 
lage  life,  the  big,  low-ceilinged  room,  its  windows  cur 
tained  with  white  muslin,  its  walls  bright  with  fresh 
paper  and  colored  pictures,  like  any  sitting-room  in  a 
village  home.  The  firewood  was  contributed,  a  load 
apiece,  by  the  farmers  of  the  country  about,  and  the  oil 
for  the  lamps  was  the  common  gift  of  the  three  grocery- 
stores.  There  was  no  carpet,  but  bright-colored  rag  rugs 
lay  about  on  the  bare  floor,  and  it  was  a  point  of  honor 
with  the  Ladies'  Aid  Society  of  the  church  to  keep  these 
renewed. 

The  expense  of  a  librarian's  salary  was  obviated  by  the 
expedient  of  having  no  librarian.  The  ladies  of  Hillsboro 
took  turns  in  presiding  over  the  librarian's  table,  each 
one's  day  coming  about  once  in  three  weeks.  "  Library 
Day  "  was  as  fixed  an  institution  in  Hillsboro  as  "  wash 
day,"  and  there  was  not  a  busy  housewife  who  did  not 
look  forward  to  the  long  quiet  morning  spent  in  dusting 
and  caring  for  the  worn  old  books,  which  were  like  the 
faces  of  friends  to  her,  familiar  from  childhood.  The  aft 
ernoon  and  evening  were  more  animated,  since  the  library 
had  become  a  sort  of  common  meeting-ground.  The  big, 
cheerful,  sunlighted  room  full  of  grown-ups  and  children, 
talking  together,  even  laughing  out  loud  at  times,  did  not 
look  like  any  sophisticated  idea  of  a  library,  for  Hills 
boro  was  as  benighted  on  the  subject  of  the  need  for 
silence  in  a  reading-room  as  on  all  other  up-to-date 
library  theories.  If  you  were  so  weak-nerved  and  sickly 
that  the  noise  kept  you  from  reading,  you  could  take  your 


HILLSBORO'S  GOOD  LUCK  191 

book,  go  into  Elzaphan  Hall's  room  and  shut  the  door,  or 
you  could  take  your  book  and  go  home,  but  you  could 
not  object  to  people  being  sociable. 

Elzaphan  Hall  was  the  janitor,  and  the  town's  only 
pauper.  He  was  an  old  G.  A.  R.  man  who  had  come  back 
from  the  war  minus  an  arm  and  a  foot,  and  otherwise 
so  shattered  that  steady  work  was  impossible.  In  order 
not  to  wound  him  by  making  him  feel  that  he  was  depend 
ent  on  public  charity,  it  had  been  at  once  settled  that  he 
should  keep  the  fire  going  in  the  library,  scrub  the  floor, 
and  keep  the  room  clean  in  return  for  his  food  and  lodg 
ing.  He  "  boarded  round  "  like  the  school-teacher,  and 
slept  in  a  little  room  off  the  library.  In  the  course  of 
years  he  had  grown  pathetically  and  exasperatingly  con 
vinced  of  his  own  importance,  but  he  had  been  there  so 
long  that  his  dictatorial  airs  and  humors  were  regarded 
with  the  unsurprised  tolerance  granted  to  things  of  long 
standing,  and  were  forgiven  in  view  of  his  devotion  to 
the  best  interests  of  the  library,  which  took  the  place  of 
a  family  to  him. 

As  for  the  expenses  of  cataloguing,  no  one  ever  thought 
of  such  a  thing.  Catalogue  the  books?  Why,  as  soon 
hang  up  a  list  of  the  family  so  that  you  wouldn't  forget 
how  many  children  you  had;  as  soon  draw  a  plan  of  the 
village  so  that  people  should  not  lose  their  way  about. 
Everybody  knew  what  and  where  the  books  were,  as 
well  as  they  knew  what  and  where  the  fields  on  their 
farms  were,  or  where  the  dishes  were  on  the  pantry 
shelves.  The  money  from  the  entertainment  was  in 
hand  by  the  middle  of  February;  by  April  the  new 
books,  usually  about  a  hundred  in  number,  had  arrived; 
and  by  June  any  wide-awake,  intelligent  resident  of  Hills- 


192  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

boro  would  have  been  ashamed  to  confess  that  he  did  not 
know  the  location  of  every  one. 

The  system  of  placing  on  the  shelves  was  simplicity 
itself.  Each  year's  new  acquisitions  were  kept  together, 
regardless  of  subject,  and  located  by  the  name  of  the  en 
tertainment  which  had  bought  them.  Thus,  if  you 
wished  to  consult  a  certain  book  on  geology,  in  which 
subject  the  library  was  rich,  owing  to  the  scientific  tastes 
of  Squire  Pritchett,  you  were  told  by  the  librarian  for  the 
day,  as  she  looked  up  from  her  darning  with  a  friendly 
smile,  that  it  was  in  the  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  section." 
The  Shakespeare  set,  honorably  worn  and  dog's-eared, 
dated  back  to  the  unnamed  mass  coming  from  early  days 
before  things  were  so  well  systematized,  and  was  said  to 
be  in  the  "  Old  Times  section  ";  whereas  Ibsen  (for  some 
of  Hillsboro  young  people  go  away  to  college)  was  bright 
and  fresh  in  the  "  East  Lynne  section." 

The  books  were  a  visible  and  sincere  symbol  of  Hills- 
boro's  past  and  present.  The  honest,  unpretending  people 
had  bought  the  books  they  wished  to  read,  and  every 
one's  taste  was  represented,  even  a  few  French  legends 
and  pious  tales  being  present  as  a  concession  to  the  Ro 
man  Catholic  element  among  the  French  Canadians. 
There  was  a  great  deal  of  E.  P.  Roe,  there  was  all  of 
Mrs.  Southworth — is  it  possible  that  anywhere  else  in  the 
world  there  is  a  complete  collection  of  that  lady's  volu 
minous  productions? — but  beside  them  stood  the  Eliza 
bethan  dramatists  and  a  translation  of  Dante.  The  men 
of  the  town,  who  after  they  were  grown  up  did  not  care 
much  for  fiction,  cast  their  votes  for  scientific  treatises 
on  agriculture,  forestry,  and  the  like;  and  there  was  an 
informal  history  club,  consisting  of  the  postmaster,  the 


HILLSBORO'S  GOOD  LUCK  193 

doctor,  and  the  druggist,  who  bore  down  heavily  on  his 
tory  books.  The  school-teacher,  the  minister,  and  the 
priest  had  each,  ex  officio,  the  choice  of  ten  books  with 
nobody  to  object,  and  the  children  in  school  were  allowed 
another  ten  with  no  advice  from  elders. 

It  would  have  made  a  scientific  librarian  faint,  the 
Hillsboro  system,  but  the  result  was  that  not  a  book  was 
bought  which  did  not  find  readers  eager  to  welcome  it. 
A  stranger  would  have  turned  dizzy  trying  to  find  his 
way  about,  but  there  are  no  strangers  in  Hillsboro.  The 
arrival  even  of  a  new  French-Canadian  lumberman  is  a 
subject  of  endless  discussion. 

It  can  be  imagined,  therefore,  how  electrified  was  the 
village  by  the  apparition,  on  a  bright  June  day,  of  an 
automobile  creaking  and  wheezing  its  slow  way  to  the 
old  tavern.  The  irritated  elderly  gentleman  who  stepped 
out  and  began  blaming  the  chauffeur  for  the  delay  an 
nounced  himself  to  Zadok  Foster,  the  tavern-keeper,  as 
Josiah  Camden,  of  Chicago,  and  was  electrified  in  his  turn 
by  the  calmness  with  which  that  mighty  name  was  re 
ceived. 

During  the  two  days  he  waited  in  Hillsboro  for  the 
repair  of  his  machine  he  amused  himself  first  by  making 
sure  of  the  incredible  fact  that  nobody  in  the  village  had 
ever  heard  of  him,  and  second  by  learning  with  an  as 
tounded  and  insatiable  curiosity  all  the  details  of  life 
in  this  forgotten  corner  of  the  mountains.  It  was  newer 
and  stranger  to  him  than  anything  he  had  seen  during  his 
celebrated  motor-car  trip  through  the  Soudan.  He  was 
stricken  speechless  by  hearing  that  you  could  rent  a  whole 
house  (of  only  five  rooms,  to  be  sure)  and  a  garden  for 
thirty-six  dollars  a  year,  and  that  the  wealthiest  man  in 


194  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

the  place  was  supposed  to  have  inherited  and  accumulated 
the  vast  sum  of  ten  thousand  dollars.  When  he  heard 
of  the  public  library  he  inquired  quickly  how  much  it  cost 
to  run  that?  Mr.  Camden  knew  from  experience  some 
thing  about  the  cost  of  public  libraries. 

"  Not  a  cent,"  said  Zadok  Foster  proudly. 

Mr.  Camden  came  from  Chicago  and  not  from  Mis 
souri,  but  the  involuntary  exclamation  of  amazed  in 
credulity  which  burst  from  his  lips  was,  "  Show  me! " 

So  they  showed  him.  The  denizen  of  the  great  world 
entered  the  poor,  low-ceilinged  room,  looked  around  at 
the  dreadful  chromos  on  the  walls,  at  the  cheap,  darned 
muslin  curtains,  at  the  gaudy  rag  rugs,  at  the  shabby, 
worn  books  in  inextricable  confusion  on  the  shelves,  and 
listened  with  gleaming  eyes  to  the  account  given  by  the 
librarian  for  the  day  of  the  years  of  patient  and  uncom 
plaining  struggles  by  which  these  poverty-stricken  moun 
taineers  had  secured  this  meager  result.  He  struck  one 
hand  into  the  other  with  a  clap.  "  It's  a  chance  in  a 
million !  "  he  cried  aloud. 

When  his  momentous  letter  came  back  from  Chicago, 
this  was  still  the  recurrent  note,  that  nowadays  it  is  so 
hard  for  a  poor  millionaire  to  find  a  deserving  object  for 
his  gifts,  that  it  is  the  rarest  opportunity  possible  when 
he  really  with  his  own  eyes  can  make  sure  of  placing  his 
money  where  it  will  carry  on  a  work  already  begun  in 
the  right  spirit.  He  spoke  in  such  glowing  terms  of  Hills- 
boro's  pathetic  endeavors  to  keep  their  poor  little  enter 
prise  going,  that  Hillsboro,  very  unconscious  indeed  of 
being  pathetic,  was  bewildered.  He  said  that  owing  to 
the  unusual  conditions  he  would  break  the  usual  rules 
governing  his  benefactions  and  ask  no  guarantee  from  the 


HILLSBORO'S  GOOD  LUCK  195 

town.  He  begged,  therefore,  to  have  the  honor  to  an 
nounce  that  he  had  already  dispatched  an  architect  and  a 
contractor  to  Hillsboro,  who  would  look  the  ground  over, 
and  put  up  a  thoroughly  modern  library  building  with  no 
expense  spared  to  make  it  complete  in  equipment;  that  he 
had  already  placed  to  the  credit  of  the  '  Hillsboro  Cam- 
den  Public  Library  "  a  sufficient  sum  to  maintain  in  per 
petuity  a  well-paid  librarian,  and  to  cover  all  expenses 
of  fuel,  lights,  purchase  of  books,  cataloguing,  etc.;  and 
that  the  Library  School  in  Albany  had  already  an  order 
to  select  a  perfectly  well-balanced  library  of  thirty  thou 
sand  books  to  begin  with. 

Reason  recoils  from  any  attempt  to  portray  the  ex 
citement  of  Hillsboro  after  this  letter  arrived.  To  say 
that  it  was  as  if  a  gold  mine  had  been  discovered  under 
the  village  green  is  the  feeblest  of  metaphors.  For  an 
entire  week  the  town  went  to  bed  at  night  tired  out  with 
exclaiming,  woke  in  the  morning  sure  it  had  dreamed  it 
all,  rushed  with  a  common  impulse  to  the  post-office 
where  the  letter  was  posted  on  the  wall,  and  fell  to  ex 
claiming  again. 

Then  the  architect  and  contractor  arrived,  and  Hills 
boro  drew  back  into  its  shell  of  somber  taciturnity,  and 
acted,  the  contractor  told  the  architect,  as  though  they 
were  in  the  habit  of  having  libraries  given  them  three 
times  a  week  regularly. 

The  architect  replied  that  these  mountaineers  were 
like  Indians.  You  couldn't  throw  a  shock  into  them  that 
would  make  them  loosen  up  any. 

Indeed,  this  characterization  seemed  just  enough,  in 
view  of  the  passive  way  in  which  Hillsboro  received 
what  was  done  for  it  during  the  months  which  followed. 


i96  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

It  was  the  passivity  of  stupefaction,  however,  as  one 
marvel  after  another  was  revealed  to  them.  The  first 
evening  the  architect  sketched  the  plans  of  a  picturesque 
building  in  the  old  Norse  style,  to  match  the  romantic 
scenery  of  the  lovely  valley.  The  next  morning  he  lo 
cated  it  upon  a  knoll  cooled  by  a  steady  breeze.  The 
contractor  made  hasty  inquiries  about  lumber,  labor,  and 
houses  for  his  men,  found  that  none  of  these  essentials 
were  at  hand,  decided  to  import  everything  from  Albany ; 
and  by  noon  of  the  day  after  they  arrived  these  two  brisk 
young  gentlemen  had  departed,  leaving  Hillsboro  still  in 
credulous  of  its  good  fortune. 

When  they  returned,  ten  days  later,  however,  they 
brought  solid  and  visible  proof  in  the  shape  of  a  train- 
load  of  building  materials  and  a  crowd  of  Italian  laborers, 
who  established  themselves  in  a  boarding-car  on  a  side 
track  near  the  station. 

"  We  are  going,"  remarked  the  contractor  to  the  archi 
tect,  "  to  make  the  dirt  fly." 

"  We  will  make  things  hum,"  answered  the  architect, 
"  as  they've  never  hummed  before  in  this  benighted  spot." 

And  indeed,  as  up  to  this  time  they  had  never  hummed 
at  all,  it  is  not  surprising  that  Hillsboro  caught  its  breath 
as  the  work  went  forward  like  Aladdin's  palace.  The 
corner-stone  was  laid  on  the  third  of  July  and  on  the 
first  of  October  the  building  stood  complete.  By  the  first 
of  November  the  books  had  come  already  catalogued  by 
the  Library  School  and  arranged  in  boxes  so  that  they 
could  be  put  at  once  upon  the  shelves;  and  the  last  de 
tails  of  the  interior  decoration  were  complete.  The  archi 
tect  was  in  the  most  na'ive  ecstasy  of  admiration  for  his 
own  taste.  The  outside  was  deliciously  unhackneyed  in 


HILLSBORO'S  GOOD  LUCK  197 

design,  the  only  reproduction  of  a  Norwegian  Stave-Kirkc 
in  America,  he  reported  to  Mr.  Camden;  and  while  that 
made  the  interior  a  little  dark,  the  quaint  wooden  build 
ing  was  exquisitely  in  harmony  with  the  landscape.  As 
for  the  interior  it  was  a  dream!  The  reading-room  was 
like  the  most  beautiful  drawing-room,  an  education  in 
itself,  done  in  dark  oak,  with  oriental  rugs,  mission  fur 
niture,  and  reproductions  of  old  masters  on  the  walls. 
Lace  sash-curtains  hung  at  the  windows,  covered  by  rich 
draperies  in  oriental  design,  which  subdued  the  light  to 
a  delightful  soberness.  The  lamps  came  from  Tiffany's. 

When  the  young-lady  librarian  arrived  from  Albany 
and  approved  enthusiastically  of  the  stack-room  and  cata 
loguing,  the  architect's  cup  of  satisfaction  fairly  ran  over; 
and  when  he  went  away,  leaving  her  installed  in  her 
handsome  oak-finished  office,  he  could  hardly  refrain  from 
embracing  her,  so  exactly  the  right  touch  did  she  add  to 
the  whole  thing  with  her  fresh  white  shirt-waist  and 
pretty,  business-like  airs.  There  had  been  no  ceremony  of 
opening,  because  Mr.  Camden  was  so  absorbed  in  an  ex 
citing  wheat  deal  that  he  could  not  think  of  coming  East, 
and  indeed  the  whole  transaction  had  been  almost  blotted 
from  his  mind  by  a  month's  flurried,  unsteady  market. 
So  one  day  in  November  the  pretty  librarian  walked  into 
her  office,  and  the  Hillsboro  Camden  Public  Library  was 
open. 

She  was  a  very  pretty  librarian  indeed,  and  she  wore 
her  tailor  suits  with  an  air  which  made  the  village  girls 
look  uneasily  into  their  mirrors  and  made  the  village  boys 
look  after  her  as  she  passed.  She  was  moreover  as  per 
meated  with  the  missionary  fervor  instilled  into  her  at 
the  Library  School  as  she  was  pretty,  and  she  began  at 


ig8  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

once  to  practice  all  the  latest  devices  for  automatically 
turning  a  benighted  community  into  the  latest  thing  in 
culture.  When  Mrs.  Bradlaugh,  wife  of  the  deacon,  and 
president  of  the  Ladies'  Aid  Society,  was  confined  to  the 
house  with  a  cold,  she  sent  over  to  the  library,  as  was  her 
wont  in  such  cases,  for  some  entertaining  story  to  while 
away  her  tedious  convalescence.  Miss  Martin  sent  back 
one  of  Henry  James's  novels,  and  was  surprised  that  Mrs. 
Bradlaugh  made  no  second  attempt  to  use  the  library. 
When  the  little  girls  in  school  asked  for  the  Elsie  books, 
she  answered  with  a  glow  of  pride  that  the  library  did 
not  possess  one  of  those  silly  stories,  and  offered  as  sub 
stitute,  "  Greek  Myths  for  Children." 

Squire  Pritchett  came,  in  a  great  hurry,  one  morning, 
and  asked  for  his  favorite  condensed  handbook  of  geol 
ogy,  in  order  to  identify  a  stone.  He  was  told  that  it 
was  entirely  out  of  date  and  very  incomplete,  and  the 
library  did  not  own  it,  and  he  was  referred  to  the  drawer 
in  the  card  catalogue  relating  to  geology.  For  a  time  his 
stubbed  old  fingers  rambled  among  the  cards,  with  an 
ever-rising  flood  of  baffled  exasperation.  How  could  he 
tell  by  looking  at  a  strange  name  on  a  little  piece  of  paper 
whether  the  book  it  represented  would  tell  him  about  a 
stone  out  of  his  gravel-pit!  Finally  he  appealed  to  the 
librarian,  who  proclaimed  on  all  occasions  her  eagerness 
to  help  inquirers,  and  she  referred  him  to  a  handsome 
great  Encyclopedia  of  Geology  in  forty-seven  volumes. 
He  wandered  around  hopelessly  in  this  for  about  an  hour, 
and  in  the  end  retreated  unenlightened.  Miss  Martin 
tried  to  help  him  in  his  search,  but,  half  amused  by  his 
rustic  ignorance,  she  asked  him  finally,  with  an  air  of 
gentle  patience,  "  how,  if  he  didn't  know  any  of  the  scien- 


HILLSBORO'S  GOOD  LUCK  199 

tific  names,  he  expected  to  be  able  to  look  up  a  subject  in 
an  alphabetically  arranged  book?"  Squire  Pritchett 
never  entered  the  library  again.  His  son  Elnathan  might 
be  caught  by  her  airs  and  graces,  he  said  rudely  enough 
in  the  post-office,  but  he  was  "  too  old  to  be  talked  down 
to  by  a  chit  who  didn't  know  granite  from  marble." 

When  the  schoolboys  asked  for  "  Nick  Carter  "  she 
gave  them  those  classics,  "  The  Rollo  Books";  and  to  the 
French-Canadians  she  gave,  reasonably  enough,  the  ac 
knowledged  masters  of  their  language,  Voltaire,  Balzac, 
and  Flaubert,  till  the  horrified  priest  forbade  from  the  pul 
pit  any  of  his  simple-minded  flock  to  enter  "  that  temple  of 
sin,  the  public  library."  She  had  little  classes  in  art-criti 
cism  for  the  young  ladies  in  town,  explaining  to  them  with 
sweet  lucidity  why  the  Botticellis  and  Rembrandts  and 
Diirers  were  better  than  the  chromos  which  still  hung  on 
the  walls  of  the  old  library,  now  cold  and  deserted  except 
for  church  suppers  and  sociables.  These  were  never  held 
in  the  new  reading-room,  the  oriental  rugs  being  much  too 
fine  to  have  doughnut  crumbs  and  coffee  spilled  on  them. 
After  a  time,  however,  the  young  ladies  told  her  that  they 
found  themselves  too  busy  getting  the  missionary  bar 
rels  ready  to  continue  absorbing  information  about  Bot 
ticelli's  rhythm  and  Durer's  line. 

Miss  Martin  was  not  only  pretty  and  competent,  but 
she  was  firm  of  purpose,  as  was  shown  by  her  encounter 
with  Elzaphan  Hall,  who  had  domineered  over  two  gen 
erations  of  amateur  librarians.  The  old  man  had  re 
ceived  strict  orders  to  preserve  silence  in  the  reading- 
room  when  the  librarian  could  not  be  there,  and  yet  one 
day  she  returned  from  the  stack-room  to  find  the  place 
in  a  most  shocking  state  of  confusion.  Everybody  was 


200  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

laughing,  Elzaphan  himself  most  of  all,  and  they  did  not 
stop  when  she  brought  her  severe  young  face  among  them. 
Elzaphan  explained,  waving  his  hand  at  a  dark  Rem 
brandt  looking  gloomily  down  upon  them,  that  Elnathan 
Pritchett  had  said  that  if  he  had  such  a  dirty  face  as  that 
he'd  wash  it,  if  he  had  to  go  as  far  as  from  here  to  the 
Eagle  Rock  Spring  to  get  the  water!  This  seemed  the 
dullest  of  bucolic  wit  to  Miss  Martin,  and  she  chilled  El 
nathan  to  the  marrow  by  her  sad  gaze  of  disappointment 
in  him.  Jennie  Foster  was  very  jealous  of  Miss  Martin 
(as  were  all  the  girls  in  town),  and  she  rejoiced  openly 
in  Elnathan's  witticism,  continuing  to  laugh  at  intervals 
after  the  rest  of  the  room  had  cowered  into  silence  under 
the  librarian's  eye. 

Miss  Martin  took  the  old  janitor  aside  and  told  him 
sternly  that  if  such  a  thing  happened  again  she  would 
dismiss  him;  and  when  the  old  man,  crazily  trying  to 
show  his  spirit,  allowed  a  spelling-match  to  go  on,  full 
blast,  right  in  library  hours,  she  did  dismiss  him,  drawing 
on  the  endless  funds  at  her  disposal  to  import  a  young 
Irishman  from  Albany,  who  was  soon  playing  havoc 
with  the  pretty  French-Canadian  girls.  Elzaphan  Hall, 
stunned  by  the  blow,  fell  into  bad  company  and  began 
to  drink  heavily,  paying  for  his  liquor  by  exceedingly 
comic  and  disrespectful  imitations  of  Miss  Martin's  talks 
on  art. 

It  was  now  about  the  middle  of  the  winter,  and  the 
knoll  which  in  June  had  been  the  center  of  gratefully  cool 
breezes  was  raked  by  piercing  north  winds  which  pene 
trated  the  picturesquely  unplastered,  wood-finished  walls 
as  though  they  had  been  paper.  The  steam-heating  plant 
did  not  work  very  well,  and  the  new  janitor,  seeing  fewer 


HILLSBORO'S  GOOD  LUCK  201 

and  fewer  people  come  to  the  reading-room,  spent  less  and 
less  time  in  struggling  with  the  boilers,  or  in  keeping  the 
long  path  up  the  hill  shoveled  clear  of  snow.  Miss  Martin, 
positively  frightened  by  the  ferocity  with  which  winter 
flings  itself  upon  the  high  narrow  valley,  was  helpless  be 
fore  the  problem  of  the  new  conditions,  and  could  think 
of  nothing  to  do  except  to  buy  more  fuel  and  yet  more, 
and  to  beseech  the  elusive  Celt,  city-trained  in  plausible 
excuses  for  not  doing  his  duty,  to  burn  more  wood.  Once 
she  remarked  plaintively  to  Elnathan  Pritchett,  as  she 
sat  beside  him  at  a  church  supper  (for  she  made  a  great 
point  of  "mingling  with  the  people"),  that  it  seemed  to 
her  there  must  be  something  the  matter  with  the  wood 
in  Hillsboro. 

Everybody  within  earshot  laughed,  and  the  saying  was 
repeated  the  next  day  with  shameless  mirth  as  the  best 
joke  of  the  season.  For  the  wood  for  the  library  had  had 
a  history  distinctly  discreditable  and  as  distinctly  ludi 
crous,  at  which  Hillsboro  people  laughed  with  a  conscious 
lowering  of  their  standards  of  honesty.  The  beginning 
had  been  an  accident,  but  the  long  sequence  was  not. 
For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  library,  the  farmer 
who  brought  the  first  load  of  wood  presented  a  bill  for 
this  service.  He  charged  two  dollars  a  cord  on  the 
scrawled  memorandum,  but  Miss  Martin  mistook  this 
figure  for  a  seven,  corrected  his  total  with  the  kindest 
tolerance  for  his  faulty  arithmetic,  and  gave  the  country 
man  a  check  which  reduced  him  for  a  time  to  a  paralyzed 
silence.  It  was  only  on  telling  the  first  person  he  met 
outside  the  library  that  the  richness  of  a  grown  person 
knowing  no  more  than  that  about  the  price  of  wood  came 
over  him,  and  the  two  screamed  with  laughter  over  the 


202  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

lady's  beautifully  formed  figures  on  the  dirty  sheet  of 
paper. 

Miss  Martin  took  the  hesitating  awkwardness  of  the 
next  man  presenting  himself  before  her,  not  daring  to 
ask  the  higher  price  and  not  willing  to  take  the  lower, 
for  rustic  bashfulness,  and  put  him  at  his  ease  by  saying 
airily,  "Five  cords?  That  makes  thirty-five  dollars.  I 
always  pay  seven  dollars  a  cord."  After  that,  the  pro 
cession  of  grinning  iru.n  driving  lumber-sleds  toward  the 
library  became  incessant.  The  minister  attempted  to  re 
monstrate  with  the  respectable  men  of  his  church  for 
cheating  a  poor  young  lady,  but  they  answered  roughly 
that  it  wasn't  her  money  but  Camden's,  who  had  tossed 
them  the  library  as  a  man  would  toss  a  penny  to  a  beg 
gar,  who  had  now  quite  forgotten  about  them,  and, 
finally,  who.  had  made  his  money  none  too  honestly. 

Since  he  had  become  of  so  much  importance  to  them 
they  had  looked  up  his  successful  career  in  the  Chicago 
wheat  pit,  and,  undazzled  by  the  millions  involved,  had 
penetrated  shrewdly  to  the  significance  of  his  operations. 
The  record  of  his  colossal  and  unpunished  frauds  had 
put  to  sleep,  so  far  as  he  was  concerned,  their  old 
minute  honesty.  It  was  considered  the  best  of  satires 
that  the  man  who  had  fooled  all  the  West  should  be 
fooled  in  his  turn  by  a  handful  of  forgotten  moun 
taineers,  that  they  should  be  fleecing  him  in  little 
things  as  he  had  fleeced  Chicago  in  great.  There  was, 
however,  an  element  which  frowned  on  this  shifting  of 
standards,  and,  before  long,  neighbors  and  old  friends 
were  divided  into  cliques,  calling  each  other,  respectively, 
cheats  and  hypocrites. 

Hillsboro  was  intolerably  dull  that  winter  because  of 


HILLSBORO'S  GOOD  LUCK  203 

the  absence  of  the  usual  excitement  over  the  entertain 
ment,  and  in  the  stagnation  all  attention  was  directed  to 
the  new  joke  on  the  wheat  king.  It  was  turned  over  and 
over,  forward  and  back,  and  refurbished  and  made  to 
do  duty  again  and  again,  after  the  fashion  of  rustic  jokes. 
This  one  had  the  additional  advantage  of  lining  the 
pockets  of  the  perpetrators.  They  egged  one  another  on 
to  fresh  inventions  and  variations,  until  even  the  children, 
not  to  be  left  out,  began  to  have  "exploits  of  their  own 
to  tell.  The  grocers  raised  the  pric>  of  kerosene,  groan 
ing  all  the  time  at  the  extortions  of r the  oil  trust,  till  the 
guileless  guardian  of  Mr.  Camden's  funds  was  paying 
fifty  cents  a  gallon  for  it.  The  boys  charged  a  quarter 
for  every  bouquet  of  pine-boughs  they  brought  to  deco 
rate  the  cold,  empty  reading-room.  The  washer-woman 
charged  five  dollars  for  "  doing-up  "  the  lace  sash-cur 
tains.  As  spring  came  on,  and  the  damages  wrought  by 
the  winter  winds  must  be  repaired,  the  carpenters  asked 
wages  which  made  the  sellers  of  firewood  tear  their  hair 
at  wasted  opportunities.  They  might  have  raised  the 
price  per  cord !  The  new  janitor,  hearing  the  talk  about 
town,  demanded  a  raise  in  salary  and  threatened  to  leave 
without  warning  if  it  were  not  granted. 

It  was  on  the  fifth  of  June,  a  year  to  a  day  after  the 
arrival  of  Mr.  Camden  in  his  automobile,  that  Miss  Mar 
tin  yielded  to  this  last  extortion,  and  her  action  made 
the  day  as  memorable  as  that  of  the  year  before.  The 
janitor,  carried  away  by  his  victory,  celebrated  his  good 
fortune  in  so  many  glasses  of  hard  cider  that  he  was 
finally  carried  home  and  deposited  limply  on  the  veranda 
of  his  boarding-house.  Here  he  slept  till  the  cold  of  dawn 
awoke  him  to  a  knowledge  of  his  whereabouts,  so  inverted 


204  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

and  tipsy  that  he  rose,  staggered  to  the  library,  cursing 
the  intolerable  length  of  these  damn  Vermont  winters, 
and  proceeded  to  build  a  roaring  fire  on  the  floor  of  the 
reading-room.  As  the  varnished  wood  of  the  beautiful 
fittings  took  light  like  a  well-constructed  bonfire,  reali 
zation  of  his  act  came  to  him,  and  he  ran  down  the  val 
ley  road,  screaming  and  giving  the  alarm  at  the  top  of 
his  lungs,  and  so  passed  out  of  Hillsboro  forever. 

The  village  looked  out  of  its  windows,  saw  the  wooden 
building  blazing  like  a  great  torch,  hurried  on  its  clothes, 
and  collected  around  the  fire.  No  effort  was  made  to 
save  the  library.  People  stood  around  in  the  chilly  morn 
ing  air,  looking  silently  at  the  mountain  of  flame  which 
burned  as  though  it  would  never  stop.  They  thought  of 
a  great  many  things  in  that  silent  hour  as  the  sun  rose 
over  Hemlock  Mountain,  and  there  were  no  smiles  on 
their  faces.  They  are  ignorant  and  narrow  people  in 
Hillsboro,  but  they  have  an  inborn  capacity  unsparingly 
to  look  facts  in  the  face. 

When  the  last  beam  had  fallen  in  with  a  crash  to  the 
blackened  cellar-hole  Miss  Martin,  very  pale  and  shaken, 
stepped  bravely  forward.  "  I  know  how  terribly  you 
must  be  feeling  about  this,"  she  began  in  her  carefully 
modulated  voice,  "  but  I  want  to  assure  you  that  I  know 
Mr.  Camden  will  rebuild  the  library  for  you  if " 

She  was  interrupted  by  the  chief  man  of  the  town, 
Squire  Pritchett,  who  began  speaking  with  a  sort  of  bel 
low  only  heard  before  in  exciting  moments  in  town-meet 
ing.  "  May  I  never  live  to  see  the  day !  "  he  shouted ;  and 
from  all  the  tongue-tied  villagers  there  rose  a  murmur 
of  relief  at  having  found  a  voice.  They  pressed  about 
him  closely  and  drank  in  his  dry,  curt  announcement: 


HILLSBORO'S  GOOD  LUCK  205 

"  As  selectman  I  shall  write  Mr.  Camden,  tell  him  of  the 
fire,  thank  him  for  his  kindness,  and  inform  him  that 
we  don't  want  any  more  of  it."  Everybody  nodded. 
"  I  don't  know  whether  his  money  is  what  they  call 
tainted  or  not,  but  there's  one  thing  sure,  it  ain't  done  us 
any  good."  He  passed  his  hand  over  his  unshaven  jaw 
with  a  rasping  wipe  and  smiled  grimly  as  he  concluded, 
"  I'm  no  hand  to  stir  up  lawbreakin'  and  disorder,  but 
I  want  to  say  right  here  that  I'll  never  inform  against 
any  Hillsboro  man  who  keeps  the  next  automobile  out 
of  town,  if  he  has  to  take  a  ax  to  it!  " 

People  laughed,  and  neighbors  who  had  not  spoken 
to  one  another  since  the  quarrel  over  the  price  of  wood 
fell  into  murmured,  approving  talk. 

Elnathan  Pritchett,  blushing  and  hesitating,  twitched 
at  his  father's  sleeve.  "  But,  father — Miss  Martin — 
We're  keeping  her  out  of  a  position." 

That  young  lady  made  one  more  effort  to  reach  these 
impenetrable  people.  "  I  was  about  to  resign,"  she  said 
with  dignity.  "  I  am  going  to  marry  the  assistant  to  the 
head  of  the  Department  of  Bibliography  at  Albany." 

The  only  answer  to  this  imposing  announcement  was 
a  giggle  from  Jennie  Foster,  to  whose  side  Elnathan 
now  fell  back,  silenced. 

People  began  to  move  away  in  little  knots,  talking  as 
they  went.  Elzaphan  Hall  stumped  hastily  down  the 
street  to  the  town  hall  and  was  standing  in  the  open  door 
as  the  first  group  passed  him. 

"  Here,  Mis'  Foster,  you're  forgittin'  somethin',"  he 
said  roughly,  with  his  old  surly,  dictatorial  air.  "  This 
is  your  day  to  the  library." 

Mrs.  Foster  hesitated,  laughing  at  the  old  man's  man- 


206  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

ner.  'f  It  seems  foolish,  but  I  don't  know  why  not!" 
she  said.  "Jennie,  you  run  on  over  home  and  bring 
me  a  dusting-cloth  and  a  broom  for  Elzaphan.  The  books 
must  be  in  a  nawful  state !  " 

When  Jennie  came  back,  a  knot  of  women  stood  before 
the  door,  talking  to  her  mother  and  looking  back  at  the 
smoldering  ruins.  Trie  girl  followed  the  direction  of 
their  eyes  and  of  their  thoughts.  "  I  don't  believe  but 
what  we  can  plant  woodbine  and  things  around  it  so  that 
in  a  month's  time  you  won't  know  there's  been  anything 
there !  "  she  said  hopefully. 


SALEM  HILLS  TO  ELLIS  ISLAND 


A  single  sleighbell,  tinkling  down 

The  virgin  road  that  skirts  the  wood, 

Makes  poignant  to  the  lonely  town 
Its  silence  and  its  solitude. 

A  single  taper's  feeble  flare 

Makes  darker  by  its  lonely  light 

The  cold  and  empty  farmsteads  square 
That  blackly  loom  to  left  and  right; 

And  she  who  sews,  by  that  dim  flame, 
The  patient  quilt  spread  on  her  knees, 

Hears  from  her  heirloom  quilting-frame 
The  frolic  of  forgotten  bees. 

Yea,  all  the  dying  village  thrills 

With  echoes  of  its  cheerful  past, 

The  golden  days  of  Salem  Hills; 
Its  only  golden  days?    Its  last? 


II 

From  Salem  Hills  a  voiceless  cry 

Along  the  darkened  valley  rolls. 
Hear  it,  great  ship,  and  forward  ply 

With  thy  rich  freight  of  venturous  souls. 

Hear  it,  O  thronging  lower  deck, 

Brave  homestead-seekers  come  from  far; 
And  crowd  the  rail,  and  crane  the  neck; 

In  Salem  Hills  your  homesteads  are ! 

Where  flourish  now  the  brier  and  thorn, 
The  barley  and  the  wheat  shall  spring, 

And  valleys  standing  thick  with  corn 

(Praise  God,  my  heart !),  shall  laugh  and  sing. 


AVUNCULUS 


THE  library  of  Middletown  College  had  been  founded, 
like  the  college  itself,  in  1818,  and  it  was  a  firm  article 
of  undergraduate  belief  that  the  librarian,  Mr.  J.  M. 
Atterworthy,  had  sat  behind  his  battered  desk  from  that 
date  on  to  the  present  time.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  was 
but  just  gliding  down-hill  from  middle  age,  having  be 
hind  him  the  same  number  of  years  as  the  active  and 
high-spirited  president  of  the  college.  And  yet  there 
was  ground  for  the  undergraduate  conviction  that  "  Old 
J.  M.  "  as  he  was  always  called,  was  an  institution  whose 
beginnings  dated  back  into  the  mists  of  antiquity,  for  of 
his  sixty  years  he  had  spent  forty-four  in  Middletown, 
and  forty  as  librarian  of  the  college. 

He  had  come  down,  a  shy,  lanky  freshman  of  sixteen, 
from  a  little  village  in  the  Green  Mountains,  and  had 
found  the  only  consolation  for  his  homesick  soul  in  the 
reading-room  of  the  library.  During  his  sophomore  and 
junior  years,  there  had  sprung  up  in  the  bookish  lad, 
shrinking  from  the  rough  fun  of  his  fellows,  the  first 
shoots  of  that  passionate  attachment  to  the  library  which 
was  later  to  bind  him  so  irrevocably  to  the  old  build 
ing.  In  those  early  days  there  was  no  regular  libra 
rian,  the  professors  taking  turn  and  turn  about  in  keep 
ing  the  reading-room  open  for  a  few  hours,  three  or 
four  days  a  week.  In  his  senior  year,  "  J.  M."  (even 
at  that  time  his  real  name  was  sunk  in  the  initials,  the 

209 


aio  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

significance  of  which  he  jealously  concealed)  petitioned 
the  faculty  to  be  allowed  to  take  charge  of  the  reading- 
room.  They  gave  a  shrug  of  surprise  at  his  eccentricity, 
investigated  briefly  his  eminently  sober-minded  college 
career,  and  heaved  a  sigh  of  relief  as  they  granted  his 
extraordinary  request. 

On  the  evening  of  Commencement  day,  J.  M.  went 
to  the  president  and  made  the  following  statement :  He 
said  that  his  father  and  his  mother  had  both  died  during 
his  senior  year,  leaving  him  entirely  alone  in  the  world, 
with  a  small  inheritance  yielding  about  fifty  dollars  a 
month.  He  had  no  leaning  to  any  profession,  he  shrank 
with  all  his  being  from  the  savage  struggles  of  the  busi 
ness  world,  and  he  could  not  bear.to  return  to  Woodville, 
to  find  himself  lonely  and  bereaved  in  the  spot  where  he 
had  had  such  a  cloudlessly  happy  childhood.  In  short, 
Middletown  was  the  only  place  he  knew  and  liked,  ex 
cept  Woodville,  which  he  loved  too  poignantly  to  live 
there  with  the  soul  gone  out  of  things;  and  the  library 
was  the  only  home  he  now  had.  If  the  president  could 
get  the  trustees,  at  their  next  meeting,  to  allow  him  the. 
use  of  the  three  rooms  in  the  library  tower,  and  if  they 
would  vote  him  a  small  nominal  salary,  say  thirty  dol 
lars  a  month,  enough  to  make  him  a  regular  member  of 
the  college  corps,  he  would  like  nothing  better  than  to 
settle  down  and  be  the  librarian  of  his  alma  mater  for  the 
rest  of  his  life. 

The  president  of  that  date  was,  like  all  the  other  presi 
dents  of  Middletown  College,  a  florid,  hearty  old  gentle 
man  with  more  red  blood  than  he  knew  what  to  do  with, 
in  spite  of  his  seventy  years.  He  was  vastly  amused  at 
the  inexperienced  young  fellow's  simple-minded  notion. 


AVUNCULUS  211 

and,  clapping  him  on  the  shoulder,  said  with  his  cheer 
fully  Johnsonian  rotundity :  "  Why,  my  dear  young  sir, 
your  recent  sad  bereavement  must  have  temporarily  de 
ranged  your  mental  faculties,  that  at  your  age  you  can 
contemplate  adopting  such  a  desiccated  mode  of  existence. 
Your  proposition  is,  however,  a  highly  advantageous  one 
to  your  college,  and  I  shall  see  that  it  is  accepted.  How 
ever,  I  am  willing  to  lay  a  wager  with  you  that  a  year 
will  not  be  out  before  you  are  asking  to  be  freed  from 
your  contract." 

J.  M.,  trembling  in  suspense,  took  in  nothing  of  the 
president's  speech  beyond  the  acceptance  of  his  offer,  and, 
pale  with  relief,  he  tried  to  stammer  his  thanks  and  his 
devotion  to  his  chosen  cause.  He  made  no  attempt  to 
contradict  the  president's  confident  prophecies;  he  only 
made  the  greatest  possible  haste  to  the  tower-rooms  which 
were  to  be  his  home.  His  eyes  filled  with  thankfulness 
at  his  lot  as  he  paced  about  them,  and,  looking  out  of  the 
windows  upon  the  campus,  he  had  a  prophetic  vision 
of  his  future,  of  the  simple,  harmless,  innocent  life 
which  was  to  be  his. 

Of  the  two  prophets  he  proved  himself  the  truer.  The 
head  of  his  college  and  one  generation  after  another  of 
similar  presidents  laughed  and  joked  him  about  the 
Wanderlust  which  would  some  day  sweep  him  away 
from  his  old  moorings,  or  the  sensible  girl  who  would 
some  day  get  hold  of  him  and  make  a  man  of  him.  He 
outlasted  all  these  wiseacres,  however,  watching  through 
mild,  spectacled  eyes  the  shifting  changes  of  the  college 
world,  which  always  left  him  as  immovable  as  the  old 
elms  before  the  library  door.  He  never  went  away  from 
Middletown,  except  on  the  most  necessary  trips  to  New 


212  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

York  or  Boston  on  business  connected  with  book-buying 
for  the  library. 

He  explained  this  unheard-of  stagnation  by  saying  that 
the  utter  metamorphosis  of  the  village  after  the  college 
life  stopped  gave  him  change  enough.  Only  once  had 
he  gone  farther  and,  to  one  of  the  younger  professors 
who  had  acquired  an  odd  taste  for  old  J.  M.'s  society, 
confessed  hesitatingly  that  he  did  not  go  away  because 
he  had  no  place  to  which  he  could  go,  except  to  his  child 
hood  home.  He  said  he  couldn't  bear  to  go  there  lest 
he  find  it  so  changed  that  the  sight  of  it  would  rob  him 
of  his  old  memories,  the  dearest — in  fact  the  only  pos 
sessions  of  his  heart.  After  a  pause  he  had  added  to  his 
young  listener,  who  found  the  little  old  secular  monk  a 
tremendously  pathetic  figure :  "  Do  you  know,  Layton, 
I  sometimes  feel  that  I  have  missed  a  great  deal  in  life — 
and  yet  not  at  all  what  everybody  thought  I  would  miss, 
the  stir  of  active  life  or  the  vulgar  excitement  of  being 
in  love.  All  that  kind  of  thing  seems  as  distasteful  to 
me  now  as  ever." 

There  he  stopped  and  poked  the  fire  until  the  young 
professor,  overcome  with  sympathetic  curiosity,  urged 
him  to  go  on.  He  sighed  at  this,  and  said :  "  Why, 
fortune  ought  not  to  have  made  me  an  only  child,  al 
though  I  can't  say  that  I've  ever  longed  for  brothers  or 
sisters.  .  .  .  But  now  I  feel  that  I  should  like  very 
much  to  have  some  nephews  and  nieces.  I  never  could 
have  stood  having  children  of  my  own — I  should  have 
been  crushed  under  the  responsibility;  but  a  nephew,  now 
— a  young  creature  with  a  brain  and  soul  developing — 
to  whom  I  could  be  a  help.  ...  I  find  as  I  get  older 
that  I  have  an  empty  feeling  as  the  college  year  draws 


AVUNCULUS  213 

to  a  close.  I  have  kept  myself  so  remote  from  human 
life,  for  fear  of  being  dragged  into  that  feverish  center 
of  it  which  has  always  so  repelled  me,  that  now  I  do 
not  touch  it  at  all."  He  ended  with  a  gentle  resignation, 
taking  off  his  glasses  and  rubbing  them  sadly :  "  I  sup 
pose  I  do  not  deserve  anything  more,  because  I  was  not 
willing  to  bear  the  burdens  of  common  life  .  .  .  and 
yet  it  almost  seems  that  there  should  be  some  place  for 
such  as  I ?" 

The  heart  of  his  young  friend  had  melted  within  him 
at  this  revelation  of  the  submissive  isolation  of  the  sweet- 
tempered,  cool-blooded  old  scholar.  Carelessly  confident, 
like  all  the  young,  that  any  amount  or  variety  of  human 
affection  could  be  his  for  the  asking,  he  promised  himself 
to  make  the  dear  old  recluse  a  sharer  in  his  own  wealth; 
but  the  next  year  he  married  a  handsome,  ambitious  girl 
who  made  him  accept  an  advantageous  offer  in  the  com 
mercial  world.  With  his  disappearance,  the  solitary  door 
in  the  prison  walls  which  kept  J.  M.  remote  from  his 
fellows  swung  shut. 

He  looked  so  hopelessly  dull  and  becalmed  after  this 
that  the  president  was  moved  to  force  on  him  a  little 
outing.  Stopping  one  day  with  his  touring-car  at  the 
door  of  the  library,  he  fairly  swept  the  sedentary  little 
man  off  his  feet  and  out  to  the  machine.  J.  M.  did  not 
catch  his  breath  during  the  swift  flight  to  the  president's 
summer  home  in  a  trim,  green,  elm-shaded  village  in  the 
Berkshires.  When  he  recovered  a  little  he  was  startled  by 
the  resemblance  of  the  place  to  his  old  recollections  of 
Woodville.  There  were  the  same  white  houses  with  green 
shutters,  and  big  white  pillars  to  the  porches,  the  same 
green  lawns  and  clumps  of  peonies  and  carefully  tended 


2i4  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

rose-gardens,  and  the  same  old-New-England  air  of  dis 
tance  from  the  hurry  and  smoky  energy  of  modern  com 
mercial  life. 

He  spoke  of  this  to  the  president's  wife  and  she 
explained  that  it  was  no  wonder.  The  village  was  vir 
tually  owned  by  a  summer  colony  of  oldish  people 
who  had  lived  there  in  their  youth  and  who  devoted 
themselves  to  keeping  the  old  place  just  as  it  had 
been.  "  We  haven't  any  children  to  bother  about  any 
more,"  she  said,  laughing,  "  so  we  take.it  out  in  putting 
knockers  on  the  doors  instead  of  bells  and  in  keeping 
the  grocery-stores  out  of  sight  so  that  the  looks  of  the 
village  green  shan't  be  spoiled." 

After  J.  M.  returned  to  deserted  Middletown,  he  could 
not  keep  out  of  his  mind  the  vision  of  the  village  he 
had  just  left,  and  the  thought  of  the  village  like  it  which 
he  had  loved  so  well  in  his  boyhood.     It  seemed  to  him 
that  if  Woodville  kept  its  old  aspect  at  all,  he  would  find 
it  a  comfort  to  try  to  inspire  the  people  now  living  there 
to  preserve  the  old-timey  look  of  it,  as  the  president  was 
doing  for  his  old  home.     There  was  positively  a  thrill 
for  J.  M.  in  the  thought  of  his  possibly  influencing  other 
people,  and  before  he  knew  it  the  plan  had  made  itself 
the  main  interest  of  the  interminably  long,  empty  days  of 
the  summer  vacation.    His  vague  feeling  of  a  lack  in  his 
life  crystallized   about  a  definite   attempt   at   filling  ^it. 
He  was  stirred  from  his  inertia  and,  leaving  word  with 
the  registrar  of  the  college,  a  newcomer  who  was  not 
at   all    surprised  that   the   librarian    should    follow   the 
example  of  all  the  rest  of  the  faculty,  J.  M.  made  the 
three  hours'   journey  which  had  separated  him  for  so 
many  years  from  the  home  of  his  youth. 


AVUNCULUS  215 

As  the  train  wound  along  the  valley  beside  the  river, 
and  as  the  familiar  outlines  of  the  mountains  rose  up 
like  the  faces  of  dear,  unforgotten  friends,  J.  M.  ex 
panded  and  bloomed  with  delight  in  his  new  idea;  but 
it  was  a  very  shriveled  and  dusty  little  old  scholar  who 
finally  arrived  at  the  farther  end  of  the  Main  Street  of 
Woodville  and  stood,  in  the  hush  of  the  noon  hour,  gaz 
ing  back  with  a  stricken  face  at  the  row  of  slovenly  un 
lovely  front  yards  separating  the  wretched  old  houses 
from  the  street. 

He  stood  before  the  house  that  had  been  his  home, 
and  when  he  looked  at  it  he  turned  very  pale  and  sat 
down  quickly  as  though  his  knees  had  failed  him.  Ap 
parently  the  house  had  not  been  painted  since  his  child 
hood,  and  certainly  it  had  not  been  repaired.  Broken, 
dangling  shutters  gave  it  a  blear-eyed  look  which  it 
made  him  sick  to  see,  and  swarms  of  untidily  pin- 
feathered  chickens  wandered  about  over  the  hard-beaten 
earth  of  the  yard,  which  was  without  a  spear  of  grass, 
littered  with  old  boxes  and  crates  and  unsightly  rags, 
and  hung  with  a  flapping,  many-legged  wash.  From  the 
three  rural  mail-delivery  boxes  at  the  gate,  he  gathered 
that  three  families  were  crowded  into  the  house  which 
had  seemed  none  too  large  for  his  father,  his  mother, 
and  himself.  He  put  on  his  glasses  and  read  the  names 
shudderingly 

Jean-Baptiste  Loyette,  Patrick  McCartey,  and  S.  Pe- 
trofsky. 

"Good  heavens!"  he  observed  feebly  to  the  vacant, 
dusty  road  beside  him,  and  in  answer  a  whistle  from 
the  big,  barrack-like  building  at  the  other  end  of 
the  street  screamed  so  stridently  that  the  heavy 


216  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

August  air  seemed  to  vibrate  about  him  in  hot 
waves. 

At  once,  as  if  all  the  houses  on  the  street  were  toy 
barometers,  every  door  swung  open  and  a  stream  of  men 
and  boys  in  dirty  shirts  and  overalls  flowed  out  through 
the  squalid  yards  along  the  sidewalks  toward  the  factory. 
From  the  house  before  which  the  librarian  of  Middle- 
town  College  sat  in  a  crushed  heap  of  resentment  came 
three  men  to  correspond  to  the  three  mail-boxes:  one 
short  and  red-haired;  one  dark,  thick-set,  and  grizzle- 
bearded;  and  the  third  tall,  clumsily  built,  with  an  impas 
sive  face  and  dark,  smoldering  eyes.  They  stared  at  the 
woebegone  old  stranger  before  their  gate,  but  evidently 
had  no  time  to  lose,  as  their  house  was  the  last  on  the 
street,  and  hurried  away  toward  the  hideous,  many- 
windowed  factory. 

J.  M.  gazed  after  them,  shaking  his  head  droopingly, 
until  a  second  eruption  from  the  house  made  him  look 
back.  The  cause  of  the  hard-beaten  bare  ground  of  the 
yard  was  apparent  at  once,  even  to  his  inexperienced 
eyes.  The  old  house  seemed  to  be  exuding  children  from 
a  thousand  pores — children  red-haired  and  black-haired, 
and  tow-headed,  boys  and  girls,  little  and  big,  and  appar 
ently  yelling  on  a  wager  about  who  owned  the  loudest 
voice,  all  dirty-faced,  barelegged,  and  scantily  clothed. 
J.  M.  mechanically  set  himself  to  counting  them,  but 
when  he  got  as  high  as  seventeen,  he  thought  he  must 
have  counted  some  of  them  twice,  and  left  off. 

A  draggle-tailed  woman  stepped  to  a  door  and  threw 
out  a  pan  of  dish-water.  J.  M.  resolved  to  overcome 
his  squeamish  disgust  and  make  a  few  inquiries  before 
he  fled  back  to  the  blessed  cleanliness  and  quiet  of  Mid- 


AVUNCULUS  217 

dletown  Library.  Picking  his  way  gingerly  through  the 
chickens  and  puppies  and  cats  and  children,  the  last  now 
smitten  into  astonished  silence  by  his  appearance,  he 
knocked  on  the  door.  The  woman  who  came  to  answer 
him  was  dressed  in  what  had  been  a  black  and  purple  per 
cale  wrapper,  she  had  a  baby  on  her  arm,  and  was  mak 
ing  vain  attempts  to  fasten  up  a  great  coil  of  hair  at 
the  back  of  her  head.  No,  she  told  him  volubly,  she 
couldn't  remember  the  town  when  it  was  any  different, 
though  she  and  Pat  had  lived  there  ever  since  they  were 
married  and  came  over  from  Ireland,  and  that  was  the 
whole  of  sixteen  years  ago. 

"  Oh !  "  with  a  sudden  gush  of  sympathy,  "  and  so  it 
was  your  old  home!  Isn't  that  intending  now!  You 
must  come  in  and  sit  awhile.  Pat,  git  a  chair  for  the 
gentleman,  and  Molly,  take  the  baby  so  I  can  talk  better. 
Oh,  won't  you  come  in?  You'd  better,  now,  and  have 
a  bite  to  eat  and  a  sup  of  tea.  I've  some  ready  made." 
Of  course,  she  went  on,  she  knew  the  house  didn't  look 
so  nice  as  in  his  day.  ..."  It's  all  along  of  the  chil 
dren!  Irish  people  can't  kape  so  tidy,  now,  can  they, 

with  siven  or  eight,  as  Yankees  can  with  one "    But 

it  certainly  was  a  grand  house,  she  didn't  wonder  he  came 
back  to  look  at  it.  Wasn't  it  fairly  like  a  palace,  now, 
compared  with  anything  her  kin  back  in  Ireland  had,  and 
such  a  fine  big  place  for  the  children  to  play  an'  all. 

J.  M.  broke  in  to  ask  a  final  question,  which  she  an 
swered,  making  .vain  attempts  to  button  her  buttonless 
collar  about  a  fat  white  neck,  and  following  him  as  he 
retreated  toward  the  street,  through  a  lively  game  of 
baseball  among  the  older  boys.  No,  so  far  as  she  knew 
there  wasn't  one  of  the  Yankees  left  that  had  lived  here 


2i8  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

in  old  times.  They  had  gone  away  when  the  factory  had 
come  in,  she'd  heard  said.  J.  M.  had  expected  this  an 
swer,  but  when  it  came,  he  turned  a  little  sick  for 
an  instant,  and  felt  giddy  with  the  heat  of  the  sun 
and  lack  of  food  and  a  desolation  in  his  heart  sharper 
and  more  searching  than  any  emotion  he  had  known  since 
his  boyhood.  Through  a  mist  before  his  eyes,  he  saw 
his  hostess  made  a  wild  warning  gesture,  and  heard 
a  yell  of  dismay  from  the  crowd  of  boys,  but  before 
he  could  turn  his  head,  something  cruelly  hard  struck 
him  in  the  side.  In  the  instant  before  he  fell,  his  clearest 
impression  was  utter  amazement  that  anything  in  the 
world  could  cause  him  such  incredible  pain,  but  then  his 
head  struck  heavily  against  a  stone,  and  he  lay  quite  still 
in  a  little  crumpled  heap  under  the  old  elm  which  had 
sheltered  his  boyhood. 


II 

For  an  instant  after  he  opened  his  eyes  again,  all  his 
life  after  leaving  Woodville  seemed  to  have  melted  away, 
for  there  at  the  foot  of  his  bed  was  the  little,  many- 
paned  window  out  of  which  he  had  watched  the  seasons 
change  all  through  his  boyhood,  and  close  above  him 
hung  the  familiar  slanting  roof  of  his  own  little,  old 
room.  However,  when  he  stirred,  it  was  not  his  mother 
but  a  rosy-faced  Irish  woman  who  stopped  her  sewing 
and  asked  him  in  a  thick,  sweet  brogue  if  he  needed  any 
thing.  As  he  stared  at  her,  recollecting  but  dimly  having 
seen  her  glossy  brown  hair  and  fair,  matronly  face  be 
fore,  she  exclaimed:  "Ah,  I'm  Bridget  McCartey,  you 
know,  an'  you  were  hurted  by  the  lads  throwin'  a  base- 


AVUNCULUS  219 

ball  into  your  ribs.  It's  lyin'  here  a  week  sick  you've 
been,  and,  savin'  your  pardon,  the  sooner  you  tell  me 
where  your  folks  live  the  better.  They'll  be  fair  wild 
about  you." 

The  sick  man  closed  his  eyes  again.  "  I  have  no  family 
at  all,"  he  said.  It  was  the  first  time  in  years  that  the 
thoroughgoing  extent  of  that  fact  had  been  brought  home 
to  him. 

His  nurse  was  moved  to  sympathy  over  so  awful  a 
fate.  "  Sure  an'  don't  I  know  how  'tis.  Pat  an'  I  left 
every  one  of  our  kith  behind  us,  mostly,  when  we  come 
away,  and  it's  that  hungry  for  thim  that  I  get.  I  dare 
say  it  ill  becomes  me  to  say  it,  but  the  first  thing  I  says 
to  myself  when  I  see  you  was  how  like  you  are  to  one 
of  my  father's  brothers  in  County  Kerry.  It's  been  a 
real  comfort  to  have  you  here  sick,  as  though  I  had  some 
of  my  own  kin  near.  His  name  was  Jerry.  It's  not 
possible,  is't,  that  the  J.  on  your  handkerchief  stands  for 
Jerry,  too?" 

For  the  first  time  since  he  had  left  Woodville  J.  M. 
disclosed  the  grotesque  secret  of  his  initials.  In  the 
flaccid  indifference  of  convalescence  it  flowed  from  him 
painlessly.  "  My  name  is  Jeroboam  Mordecai." 

"  Exactly  to  a  hair  like  Uncle  Jerry's !  "  cried  Mrs. 
McCartey,  overjoyed  by  the  coincidence.  "  Except  that 
his  J.  stood  for  Jeremiah  and  his  M.  for  Michael.  If  you 
will  tell  me  your  last  name,  too,  I'll  try  and  lambaste  the 
children  into  callin'  you  proper.  Not  havin'  sorra  name 
to  speak  of  you  by,  and  hearin'  me  say  to  Pat  how  you 
favored  my  father's  brother,  haven't  they  taken  to  callin' 
you  Uncle  Jerry — more  shame  to  them !  " 

The  mention  of  the  children  awoke  to  life  J.  M.'s  old 


220  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

punctilious  habits.  He  tried  to  sit  up.  "  But  you  have 
so  little  space  for  all  your  family — you  should  not  have 
taken  me  in;  where  can  the  children  sleep?" 

Mrs.  McCartey  pushed  him  back  on  the  pillow  with  an 
affectionate  firmness  born  of  "  the  bringin'  up  of  sivin." 
"  Now  lay  still,  Uncle  Jerry,  and  kape  yourself  cool." 
The  name  slipped  out  unnoticed  in  her  hospitable  fervor. 
"  Wasn't  it  the  least  we  could  do  when  'twas  our  own 
Mike's  ball  that  came  near  killin'  you?  An'  the  children 
—the  boys,  that  is,  that  this  is  their  room — isn't  it  out 
in  the  barn  they're  sleepin'  on  the  hay?  An'  that  pleased 
with  it.  Pat  and  I  were  thinkin'  that  now  was  a  good 
chance  to  teach  them  to  give  up  things — when  you've  no 
old  folks  about  you,  the  children  are  so  apt  to  grow  up 
selfish-like — but  they  think  the  barn's  better  nor  the 
house,  bless  them,  so  don't  you  worry." 

She  pulled  the  bedclothes  straight  (J.  M.  noticed  that 
they  were  quite  clean),  settled  the  pillow,  and  drew  down 
the  shade.  "  Now  thin,  you've  talked  enough,"  she  said. 
"  Take  a  sup  of  sleep  for  a  while."  And  to  J.  M.'s  feeble 
surprise  he  found  himself  doing  exactly  as  he  was  told, 
dozing  off  with  a  curious  weak-headed  feeling  of  com 
fort. 

He  came  to  his  strength  slowly,  the  doctor  forbidding 
him  to  think  of  taking  a  journey  for  a  month  at  least. 
Indeed,  J.  M.,  thinking  of  his  isolated  tower-rooms  in 
the  deserted  college  town,  was  in  no  haste  to  leave  Mrs. 
McCartey's  kindly,  dictatorial  care.  He  had  been  very 
sick  indeed,  the  doctor  told  him  seriously,  and  he  felt 
it  in  the  trembling  weakness  of  his  first  attempts 
at  sitting  up,  and  in  the  blank  vacancy  of  his 
mind. 


AVUNCULUS  221 

At  first  he  could  not  seem  to  remember  for  more  than 
an  instant  at  a  time  how  he  came  to  be  there,  and  later, 
as  his  capacity  for  thought  came  back,  he  found  his  sur 
roundings  grown  insensibly  familiar  to  him.  He  felt 
himself  somehow  to  have  slipped  so  completely  into  the 
inside  of  things  that  it  was  impossible  to  recover  the  re 
mote,  hostile  point  of  view  which  had  been  his  as  he 
had  looked  over  the  gate  a  fortnight  ago.  For  instance, 
knowing  now,  not  only  that  the  children's  faces  were 
scrubbed  to  a  polished  redness  every  morning,  but  being 
cognizant  through  his  window  of  most  of  the  palpably  un 
avoidable  accidents  of  play  which  made  them  dirty  half 
an  hour  later,  he  would  have  resented  as  unreasonable 
intolerance  any  undue  emphasis  on  this  phase  of  their  ap 
pearance. 

The  first  day  that  he  was  well  enough  to  sit  out  on  the 
porch  was  a  great  event.  The  children,  who  before  had 
made  only  shy,  fleeting  visits  to  his  room  with  "  little 
handfuls  of  bokays,"  as  their  mother  said,  were  as  ex 
cited  and  elated  over  his  appearance  as  though  it  reflected 
some  credit  on  themselves.  Indeed,  J.  M.  found  that  he 
was  the  subject  of  unaccountable  pride  to  all  the  family, 
and  one  of  the  first  of  those  decisions  of  his  between 
McCartey  and  Lo>ette  occurred  that  very  morning.  The 
Loyette  children  insisted  on  being  included  in  the  rejoic 
ing  over  the  convalescent's  step  forward,  and  soon 
Pierre,  the  oldest  boy,  was  haled  before  J.  M.  himself 
to  account  for  his  having  dared  to  use  the  McCartey 
name  for  the  sick  man. 

"You're  not  his  Uncle  Jerry,  are  you?"  demanded 
Mike  McCartey. 

J.  M.  thought  that  now  was  the  time  to  repress  the 


222  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

too  exuberant  McCartey  familiarity.  "  I'm  his  Uncle 
Jerry  just  as  much  as  I  am  yours!  "  he  said  severely. 

It  took  him  a  whole  day  to  understand  the  jubilant 
triumph  of  the  French-Canadians  and  to  realize  that  he 
had  apparently  not  only  upheld  the  McCarteys  in  their 
preposterous  nickname,  but  that  he  had  added  all  the 
black-eyed  Loyettes  to  his  new  family.  Mrs.  McCartey 
said  to  him  that  evening,  with  an  innocent  misconception 
of  the  situation,  "  Sure  an'  mustn't  it  sound  fine  to  you, 
that  name,  when  you've  no  kith  of  your  own."  J.  M. 
realized  that  that  speech  broke  down  the  last  bridge  of 
retreat  into  his  forsaken  dignity.  It  is  worthy  of  note 
that  as  he  lay  in  bed  that  evening,  meditating  upon  it,  he 
suddenly  broke  into  a  little  laugh  of  utter  amusement, 
such  as  the  assistants  at  Middletown  Library  had  never 
heard  from  his  lips. 

The  rapidity  with  which  he  was  fitted  into  the  routine 
of  the  place  took  his  breath  away.  At  first  when  he  sat 
on  the  porch,  which  was  the  common  ground  of  all  the 
families,  either  Mrs.  McCartey  or  Mrs.  Loyette  sewed 
near  him  to  keep  an  eye  on  the  children,  but,  as  his 
strength  came  back,  they  made  him,  with  a  sigh  of  relief, 
their  substitute,  and  disappeared  into  the  house  about  neg 
lected  housework.  "  Oh,  ain't  it  lovely  now !  "  cried 
Mrs.  McCartey  to  Mrs.  Loyette,  "  to  have  an  old  person 
of  your  own  about  the  place  that  you  can  leave  the 
children  with  a  half-minute,  while  you  snatch  the  wash- 
boiler  off  the  fire  or  keep  the  baby  from  cuttin'  her  throat 
with  the  butcher-knife." 

Mrs.  Loyette  agreed,  shaking  her  sleek  black  head  a 
great  many  times  in  emphasis.  "  Zose  pipple,"  she  added, 
"  zose  lucky  pipple  who  have  all  zere  old  pipple  wiz  zem, 


AVUNCULUS  223 

zey  cannot  know  how  hard  is  eet  to  be  a  mozzer,  wizout 
a  one  grand'mere,  or  oncle." 

So  J.  M.  at  the  end  of  his  first  fortnight  in  Woodville 
found  himself  undisputed  umpire  in  all  the  games,  dis 
cussions,  quarrels,  and  undertakings  of  seven  young 
Irish-Americans  and  more  French-Canadian-Americans 
than  he  could  count.  He  never  did  find  out  exactly  how 
many  Loyettes  there  were.  The  untidy  front  yard,  lit 
tered  with  boxes  and  barrels,  assumed  a  strangely  differ 
ent  aspect  to  him  as  he  learned  its  infinite  possibilities 
for  games  and  buildings  and  imaginations  generally. 
Sometimes  it  was  a  village  with  a  box  as  house  for  each 
child,  ranged  in  streets  and  lanes,  and  then  Uncle  Jerry 
was  the  mayor  and  had  to  make  the  laws.  Sometimes 
the  yard  foamed  and  heaved  in  salt  waves  as,  embarked 
in  caravels,  the  expedition  for  the  discovery  of  America 
(out  of  the  older  children's  history-books)  dashed  over 
the  Atlantic.  It  is  needless  to  state  that  Uncle  Jerry 
was  Christopher  Columbus. 

Both  the  grateful  mothers  whom  he  was  relieving 
cried  out  that  never  had  there  been  such  peace  as  since 
he  came,  not  only  because  the  children  could  appeal  to 
him  for  decisions  instead  of  running  to  their  mothers, 
but  because,  the  spectacular  character  in  every  game  be 
longing  to  him  as  "  company,"  there  were  no  more  quar 
rels  between  Mike  and  Pierre  about  the  leadership.  J. 
M.  could  not  seem  to  find  his  old  formal  personality  for 
weeks  after  Mike's  baseball  had  knocked  it  out  of  him, 
and  in  the  meantime  he  submitted,  meekly  at  first  and 
later  with  an  absurd  readiness,  to  being  an  Indian  chief 
tain,  and  the  head  of  the  fire  department,  and  the  princi 
pal  of  a  big  public  school,  and  the  colonel  of  a  regiment, 


224  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

and  the  owner  of  a  cotton  factory,  and  the  leader  of 
Arctic  expeditions,  and  all  the  other  characters  which  the 
fertile  minds  inhabiting  the  front  yard  forced  upon  him. 
He  realized  that  he  was  a  changed  soul  when  he  found 
himself  rejoicing  as  the  boys  came  tugging  yet  another 
big  crate,  obtained  from  the  factory,  to  add  to  the  col 
lection  before  him.  They  needed  it  for  the  car  for  the 
elephant  as  the  circus  they  were  then  performing  moved 
from  one  end  of  the  yard  to  the  other. 

He  was  often  very,  very  tired  when  night  came,  but 
he  surprised  himself  by  never  having  a  touch  of  his  old 
enemy,  insomnia.  At  first  he  went  to  bed  when  the  chil 
dren  did,  but  as  he  progressed  out  of  convalescence,  he  sat 
out  on  the  porch  with  Pat  and  Bridget,  as  they  insisted 
he  should  call  them.  It  was  very  quiet  then,  when  the 
cool  summer  dusk  had  hushed  all  the  young  life  which 
made  each  day  such  an  absorbing  series  of  unexpected 
events.  The  puppies  and  kittens  slept  in  their  boxes,  the 
hens  had  gathered  the  chickens  under  their  wings,  the 
children  were  sound  asleep,  and  the  great  elms  cast 
kindly  shadows  on  the  porch  where  the  older  people  sat. 
The  Loyettes  often  came  out  and  joined  them,  and  J.  M. 
listened  with  an  interest  which  surprised  him  as  they  told 
stories  about  hard  times  in  their  old  homes,  rejoiced  in 
their  present  prosperity,  and  made  humbly  aspiring  plans 
for  their  children. 

For  the  first  time  in  his  life  J.  M.  felt  himself  to  be 
a  person  of  almost  unlimited  resources,  both  of  knowl 
edge  and  wealth,  as  the  pitiful  meagerness  of  his  hosts' 
supply  of  these  commodities  was  revealed  to  him  in  these 
talks,  more  intimate  than  any  he  had  known,  more  vitally 
human  than  any  he  had  ever  heard.  The  acquisition  of 


AVUNCULUS  225 

a  rare  first  edition,  perhaps  the  most  stirring  event  in 
his  life  in  Middletown,  had  never  aroused  him  to  any 
thing  like  the  eagerness  with  which  he  heard  the  Loyettes 
helplessly  bemoaning  their  inability  to  do  anything  for 
their  oldest  child,  Rosalie,  a  slim  girl  of  seventeen.  Her 
drawing-teacher  at  school  had  said  that  the  child  had  an 
unusual  gift  for  designing,  and  a  manufacturer  of  wall 
paper,  who  had  seen  some  of  her  work  on  a  visit  to  the 
Woodville  factory,  had  confirmed  this  judgment  and  said 
that  "  something  ought  to  be  done  for  her." 

"  But  what? "  her  parents  wondered  with  an  utter 
ignorance  of  the  world  outside  of  Woodville  which  as 
tonished  J.  M. 

"  Why  don't  you  send  her  to  a  school  of  design?  "  he 
asked. 

"  Vat  is  gat?  "  asked  Papa  Loyette  blankly,  and  "  We 
have  no  money/'  sighed  Maman. 

J.  M.  stirred  himself,  wrote  to  the  director  of  a  school 
of  design  in  Albany,  consulted  the  priest  of  the  parish, 
sent  some  of  Rosalie's  work,  and  asked  about  scholar 
ships.  When  a  favorable  answer  came,  he  hurried  to 
explain  the  matter  to  the  Loyettes  and  offered  to  provide 
the  four  dollars  a  week  necessary  for  her  board  at  the 
Catholic  Home  for  Working  Girls,  of  which  the  priest 
had  told  him.  He  went  to  bed  that  night  with  his  heart 
beating  faster  from  the  reflection  of  their  agitated  joy 
than  it  had  done  for  years.  He  could  not  get  to  sleep 
for  a  long  time,  such  a  thrill  of  emotion  did  he  get  from 
each  recollection  of  Maman  Loyette's  broad  face  bathed 
in  tears  of  gratitude. 

After  this  they  fell  into  the  way  of  asking  him  about 
all  their  problems,  from  the  management  of  difficult  chil- 


226  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

dren  to  what  to  do  about  an  unjust  foreman  and  whether 
to  join  the  union.  The  childless,  unpractical,  academic 
old  bachelor,  forced  to  meditate  on  these  new  subjects, 
gave  utterance  to  advice  whose  sagacity  amazed  himself. 
He  had  not  known  it  was  in  him  to  have  such  sensible 
ideas  about  how  to  interest  a  growing  boy  in  athletics 
to  keep  him  from  drinking;  and  as  for  the  question  of 
unions,  he  boiled  at  the  memory  of  some  of  the  half- 
baked,  pedantic  theories  he  had  heard  promulgated  by 
the  professor  of  political  economy  in  Middletown. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  stood  in  wonder  at  the  un 
conscious  but  profound  wisdom  which  these  ignorant 
people  showed  as  to  the  fundamentals  of  life. 

"  No,  we're  not  much  for  clothes! "  said  Mrs.  Mc- 
Cartey,  comfortably  tucking  up  her  worn  and  faded 
sleeves.  "  Haven't  we  all  of  us  enough  good  clothes  to 
go  to  Mass  in,  and  that's  a'plenty!  The  rest  of  Pat's 
money  goes  to  gettin'  lots  of  good  food  for  the  children, 
bless  their  red  faces  and  fat  little  bellies!  and  laying  by 
a  dollar  or  so  a  week  against  the  rainy  day.  Children 
can  play  better,  anyhow,  with  only  overalls  and  shirts. 
The  best  times  for  kids  is  the  cheapest !  " 

J.  M.  thought  of  the  heavy-eyed,  harassed  professors 
of  his  acquaintance,  working  nights  and  Sundays  at  hack 
work  to  satisfy  the  nervous  ambitions  of  their  wives  to 
keep  up  appearances,  and  gave  a  sudden  swift  embrace 
to  the  ragged  child  on  his  lap,  little  Molly,  who  had  de 
veloped  an  especial  cult  for  him,  following  him  every 
where  with  great  pansy  eyes  of  adoring  admiration. 

On  his  first  expedition  out  of  the  yard  since  his  illness, 
he  was  touched  by  the  enthusiastic  interest  which  all 
Main  Street  took  in  his  progress.  Women  with  babies 


AVUNCULUS  227 

came  down  to  nearly  every  gate  to  pass  the  time  of  day 
with  Rosalie,  on  whose  arm  he  leaned,  and  to  say  in 
their  varying  foreign  accents  that  they  were  glad  to  see 
the  sick  gentleman  able  to  be  out.  Since  J.  M.  had  had 
a  chance  at  first-hand  observation  of  the  variety  of  oc 
cupation  forced  upon  the  mother  of  seven,  he  was  not 
surprised  that  they  wore  more  or  less  dilapidated  wrappers 
and  did  not  Marcel-wave  their  hair.  Now  he  noticed 
the  motherly  look  in  their  eyes,  and  the  exuberant  health 
of  the  children  laughing  and  swarming  about  them. 
When  he  returned  to  the  house  he  sat  down  on  the 
porch  to  consider  a  number  of  new  ideas  which  were 
springing  up  in  his  mind,  beginning  to  return  to  its  old 
vigor.  Mrs.  McCartey  came  out  to  see  how  he  had  stood 
the  fatigue  and  said :  "  Sure  you  look  smarter  than  be 
fore  you  went !  It  interred  you  now,  didn't  it,  to  have 
a  chance  really  to  see  the  old  place?" 

"  Yes,"  said  J.  M.,  "  it  did,  very  much." 

Mrs.  McCartey  went  on :  "  I've  been  thinkin'  so  many 
times  since  you  come  how  much  luckier  you  are  than 
most  Yankees  that  come  back  to  their  old  homes.  It 
must  seem  so  good  to  you  to  see  the  houses  just  swarmin' 
with  young  life  and  to  know  that  the  trees  and  yards  and 
rocks  and  brooks  that  give  you  such  a  good  time  when 
you  was  a  boy,  are  goin'  on  givin'  good  times  to  a  string 
of  other  boys." 

J.  M.  looked  at  her  with  attentive,  surprised  eyes. 
"  Why,  do  you  know,"  he  cried,  "  it  does  seem  good,  to 
be  sure!" 

The  other  did  not  notice  the  oddness  of  his  accent  as 
she  ended  meditatively :  "  You  can  never  get  me  to  be 
lieve,  that  it  don't  make  old  Yankees  feel  low  in  their 


228  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

minds  to  go  back  to  their  old  homes  and  find  just  a  few 
white-headed  rheumatickers  potterin'  around,  an'  the 
grass  growing  over  everything  as  though  it  was  a  mold- 
erin'  graveyard  that  nobody  iver  walked  in,  and  sorra 
sign  of  life  annyway  you  look  up  and  down  the  street." 

J.  M.'s  mind  flew  back  to  the  summer  home  of  the 
president  of  Middletown.  "  Good  gracious,"  he  ex 
claimed,  "  you're  right !  " 

Mrs.  McCartey  did  not  take  in  to  the  full  this  compli 
ment,  her  mind  being  suddenly  diverted  by  the  appear 
ance  of  a  tall  figure  at  the  door  of  the  farther  wing  of 
the  house.  "  Say,  Uncle  Jerry,"  she  said,  lowering  her 
voice,  "  Stefan  Petrofsky  asked  me  the  other  day  if  I 
thought  you  would  let  him  talk  to  you  about  Ivan  some 
evening?  " 

"  Why,  who  are  they,  anyhow?  "  asked  J.  M.  "  I've 
often  wondered  why  they  kept  themselves  so  separate 
from  the  rest  of  us."  As  he  spoke  he  noticed  the  turn 
of  his  phrase  and  almost  laughed  aloud. 

"  Petrofsky's  wife,  poor  thing,  died  since  they  come 
here,  and  now  there's  only  Stefan,  he's  the  father,  and 
Ivan,  he's  the  boy.  He's  awful  smart  they  say,  and 
Stefan,  he's  about  kilt  himself  to  get  the  boy  through  the 
high  school.  He  graduated  this  spring  and  now  Stefan 
he  says  he  wants  him  to  get  some  more  education.  He 
says  their  family,  back  in  Russia,  was  real  gentry  and  he 
wants  Ivan  to  learn  a  lot  so  that  he  can  help  the  poor 
Roosians  who  come  here  to  do  the  right  thing  by  the 
government " 

"What?"  asked  J.  M.  "I  don't  seem  to  catch  his 
idea." 

"  Well,  no  more  do  I,  sorra  bit,"  confessed  Mrs.  Me- 


AVUNCULUS  229 

Cartey  serenely.  "  Not  a  breath  of  what  he  meant  got 
to  me,  but  what  he  said  was  that  Ivan's  schoolin'  had 
put  queer  ideas  in  his  head  to  be  an  anarchist  or  some- 
thin'  and  he  thought  that  maybe  more  schoolin'  would 
drive  out  thim  ideas  and  put  in  other  ones  yet.  Hasn't 
it  a  foolish  sound,  now?  "  She  appealed  to  J.  M.  for  a 
sympathy  she  did  not  get. 

"  It  sounds  like  the  most  interesting  case  I  ever  heard 
of,"  he  cried,  with  a  generous  looseness  of  superlative 
new  to  him.  "  Is  Ivan  that  tall,  shy,  sad-looking  boy 
who  goes  with  his  father  to  work?" 

"  That's  him.  An'  plays  the  fiddle  fit  to  tear  the  heart 
out  of  your  body,  and  reads  big  books  till  God  knows 
what  hour  in  the  mornin'.  His  father,  he  says  he  don't 
know  what  to  do  with  him.  .  .  .  There's  a  big,  bad 
devil  of  a  Polack  down  to  the  works  that  wants  him  to 
join  the  anarchists  in  the  fall  and  go  to— 

J.  M.  rose  to  his  feet  and  hurried  down  the  porch  to 
ward  the  Petrofsky  wing  of  the  house,  addressing  him 
self  to  the  tall,  grave- faced  figure  in  the  doorway.  "  Oh, 
Mr.  Petrofsky,  may  I  have  a  few  minutes'  talk  with  you 
about  your  son?  "  he  said. 

Ill 

The  registrar  of  Middletown  College,  being  a  new 
comer,  saw  nothing  unusual  in  the  fact  that  the  libra 
rian  came  to  his  office  on  matriculation  day  to  enroll  as 
a  freshman  a  shy,  dark-eyed  lad  with  a  foreign  name; 
but  the  president  and  older  professors  were  petrified  into 
speechlessness  by  the  news  that  old  J.  M.  had  returned 
from  parts  unknown  with  a  queer-looking  boy,  who  called 


230  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

the  old  man  uncle.  Their  amazement  rose  to  positive 
incredulity  when  they  heard  that  the  fastidious,  finical 
old  bachelor  had  actually  installed  a  raw  freshman  in  one 
of  his  precious  tower-rooms,  always  before  inexorably 
guarded  from  the  mildest  and  most  passing  intrusion  on 
their  hallowed  quiet. 

The  president  made  all  haste  to  call  on  J.  M.  and  see 
the  phenomenon  with  his  own  eyes.  As  discreetly  as  his 
raging  curiosity  would  allow  him,  he  fell  to  questioning 
the  former  recluse.  When  he  learned  that  J.  M.  had 
spent  six  weeks  in  Woodville,  no  more  explanation  seemed 
needed.  "Oh,  of  course,  your  old  home?" 

"  Yes,"  said  J.  M.,  "  my  old  home." 

"  And  you  had  a  warm  welcome  there,  I  dare  say  ?  " 

"  Yes,  indeed,"  said  J.  M. 

"  Found  the  old  town  in  good  condition?  " 

"  Excellent !  "  this  with  emphasis. 

The  president  saw  it  all,  explaining  it  competently  to 
himself.  "  Yes,  yes,  I  see  it  from  here — vacation  spent 
in  renewing  your  youth  playing  with  the  children — prom 
ised  to  go  back  at  Christmas,  I  suppose." 

"  Oh,  yes,  of  course,"  said  J.  M. 

"  Children  cried  when  you  came  away,  and  gave  you 
dotty  little  things  they'd  made  themselves?" 

"  Just  like  that,"  with  a  reminiscent  smile. 

"Well,  well,"  the  president  got  to  his  feet.  "Of 
course,  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  to  take  an  interest 
in  your  brothers'  and  sisters'  children." 

J.  M.  did  not  contradict  the  president.  He  never  con 
tradicted  the  presidents.  He  outlasted  them  so  consist 
ently  that  it  was  not  necessary  This  time  he  took  off 
his  glasses  and  rubbed  them  on  an  awkwardly  fashioned 


AVUNCULUS  231 

chamois  spectacle-wiper  made  for  him  by  little  Molly 
McCartey.  He  noticed  the  pattern  of  the  silk  in  his 
visitor's  necktie  and  it  made  him  think  of  one  of  Ro 
salie  Loyette's  designs.  He  smiled  a  little. 

The  president  regarded  this  smiling  silence  with  sus 
picion.  He  cocked  his  eye  penetratingly  upon  his  libra 
rian.  "  But  it  is  very  queer,  J.  M.,  that  as  long  as  I  have 
known  you,  I  never  heard  that  you  had  any  family  at 
all." 

J.  M.  put  his  clean  and  polished  spectacles  back  on 
his  nose  and  looked  through  them  into  the  next  room, 
where  Ivan  Petrofsky  sat  devouring  his  first  lesson  in 
political  economy.  Then  he  turned,  beaming  like  an  ami 
able  sphinx  upon  his  interrogator.  "  Do  you  know — I 
never  realized  it  myself  until  just  lately,"  he  said. 


BY  ABANA  AND  PHARPAR 

Fields,  green  fields  of  Shining  River, 

Lightly  left  too  soon 
In  the  stormy  equinoctial, 

In  the  hunter's  moon, — 

Snow-blown  fields  of  Shining  River 
I  shall  once  more  tread; 

I  shall  walk  their  crested  hollows, 
Living  or  dead. 


FINIS 

To  old  Mrs.  Prentiss,  watching  apprehensively  each 
slow  mountain  dawn,  the  long,  golden  days  of  the  warm 
autumn  formed  a  series  of  blessed  reprieves  from  the 
doom  which  hung  over  her.  With  her  inherited  and 
trained  sense  of  reality,  she  could  not  cheat  herself  into 
forgetting,  even  for  a  moment,  that  her  fate  was  certain, 
but,  nevertheless,  she  took  a  breathless  enjoyment  in  each 
day,  as  it  passed  and  did  not  bring  the  dreaded  change  in 
her  life.  She  spoke  to  her  husband  about  this  feeling  as 
they  sat  on  the  front  step  one  October  evening,  when 
the  air  was  as  mild  as  in  late  May,  breaking  the  calm 
silence,  in  which  they  usually  sat,  by  saying,  "  Seems  as 
though  this  weather  was  just  made  for  us,  don't  it 
father?" 

The  old  man  stirred  uneasily  in  his  chair.  "  I  dun'no' 
— seems  sometimes  to  me  as  though  I'd  ruther  have  win 
ter  come  and  be  done  with  it.  If  we've  got  to  go  as  soon 
as  cold  weather  sets  in,  we  might  as  well  go  and  have  it 
over  with..  As  'tis,  I  keep  on  saying  good-by  in  my  mind 
to  things  and  folks  every  minute,  and  then  get  up  in  the 
morning  to  begin  it  all  again.  This  afternoon  I  was 
down  the  river  where  I  saved  Hiram's  life  when  he  was 
a  little  fellow — the  old  black  whirl-hole.  I  got  to  think 
ing  about  that  time.  I  never  was  real  sure  till  then  I 
wouldn't  be  a  coward  if  it  come  right  down  to  it.  Seems 
as  though  I'd  been  more  of  a  man  ever  since.  It's  been 

233 


234  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

a  real  comfort  to  me  to  look  at  that  whirl-hole,  and  this 
afternoon  it  come  over  me  that  after  this  there  wouldn't 
be  a  single  thing  any  more  to  remind  us  of  anything, 
good  or  bad,  we've  ever  done.  It'll  be  most  as  if  we 
hadn't  lived  at  all.  I  just  felt  as  though  I  couldn't  go 
away  from  everything  and  everybody  I've  ever  known, 
down  to  Hiram's  stuffy  little  flat.  And  yet  I  suppose 
we  are  real  lucky  to  have  such  a  good  son  as  Hiram, 
now  the  others  are  all  gone.  I  dun'no'  what  we'd  do  if 
'tweren't  for  him." 

"Do!"  cried  his  wife  bitterly.  "  We  could  go  on 
living  right  in  this  valley  where  we  belong,  if  'twas  only 
in  the  poor-house !  " 

The  old  man  answered  reasonably,  as  though  trying 
to  convince  himself,  "  Well,  I  suppose  it's  really  flying 
in  the  face  of  Providence  to  feel  so.  The  doctor  says 
your  lungs  ain't  strong  enough  to  stand  another  of  our 
winters  in  the  mountains,  fussing  over  stove  fires,  and 
zero  weather  and  all,  and  I'm  so  ailing  I  probably 
wouldn't  last  through,  either.  He  says  it's  a  special  dis 
pensation  that  we've  got  such  a  nice  place  to  go  where 
there's  steam  heat,  and  warm  as  summer,  day  and 
night." 

"  Nathaniel !  "  exclaimed  his  wife,  attempting  to  turn 
her  bulky  body  toward  him  in  the  energy  of  her  protest, 
"  how  can  you  talk  so !  We've  visited  Hiram  and  we 
know  what  an  awful  place  he  lives  in.  I  keep  a-seeing 
that  little  narrow  room  that's  to  be  all  the  place  you  and 
I'll  have,  with  the  one  window  that  gets  flapped  by  the 
wash  of  the  Lord  knows  who,  and  that  kitchen  as  big 
as  the  closet  to  my  bedroom  here,  and  that  long  narrow 
hall — why,  it's  as  much  as  ever  I  can  walk  down  that 


FINIS  235 

hall   without   sticking   fast — and   Hiram's   queer   Dutch 
wife " 

She  stopped,  silenced  by  the  scantiness  of  her  vocabu 
lary,  but  through  her  mind  still  whirled  wordless  out 
cries  of  rebellion.  Her  one  brief  visit  to  the  city  rose 
before  her  with  all  the  horror  of  the  inexplicable, 
strange,  and  repellent  life  which  it  had  revealed  to  her. 
The  very  conveniences  of  the  compact  city  apartment 
were  included  in  her  revulsion  from  all  that  it  meant. 
The  very  kindnesses  of  the  pretty,  plump  German 
woman  who  was  her  daughter-in-law  startled  and  re 
pelled  her,  as  did  the  familiar,  easy,  loud-voiced 
affection  of  the  blond  young  German-Americans  who 
were  her  grandchildren.  Even  her  own  son,  Hiram,  be 
come  half  Teutonic  through  the  influence  of  his  business 
and  social  relations  among  the  Germans,  seemed  alien 
and  remote  to  her.  The  stout,  beer-drinking,  good-na 
tured  and  easygoing  man  seemed  another  person  from  the 
shy,  stiff  lad  who  had  gone  away  from  them  many  years 
ago,  looking  so  like  his  father  at  nineteen  that  his  mother 
choked  to  see  him. 

She  passed  in  review  all  the  small  rooms  of  her  son's 
home,  "  strung  along  the  hall  like  buttons  on  a  string," 
and  thought  of  the  three  flights  of  stairs  which  were  the 
only  escape  from  them — three  long,  steep  flights,  which 
left  her  breathless,  her  knees  trembling  under  her  great 
weight,  and  which  led  out  on  the  narrow  side  street,  full 
of  noisy,  impertinent  children  and  clattering  traffic. 
Beyond  that,  nothing — a  city  full  of  strangers  whose 
every  thought  and  way  of  life  were  foreign  to  her, 
whose  very  breath  came  in  hurried,  feverish  gasps, 
who  exhaled,  as  they  passed  her,  an  almost  palpable 


236  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

emanation  of  hostile  indifference  to  her  and  her  exist 
ence.  It  was  no  new  vision  to  her.  Ever  since  the 
doctor's  verdict  had  made  it  impossible  longer  to  resist 
her  son's  dutiful  urging  of  his  parents  to  make  his  home 
theirs  she  had  spent  scarcely  an  hour  without  a  sudden 
sick  wave  of  dread  of  what  lay  before  her;  but  the  picture 
was  the  none  the  less  horrifying  because  of  familiarity, 
and  she  struck  her  hands  together  with  a  sharp  indrawn 
breath. 

The  gaunt  old  man  turned  toward  her,  a  helpless 
sympathy  twisting  his  seamed  and  weather-marked  face. 
"  It's  too  bad,  mother,"  he  said.  "  I  know  just  how  you 
feel  about  it.  But  Hiram's  a  good  son,  and  " — he  hesi 
tated,  casting  about  for  a  redeeming  feature — "  there's 
always  the  Natural  History  Museum  and  the  birds." 

"That's  just  it,  Nathaniel,"  returned  the  old  rebel 
against  fate.  "  You  have  something  there  that's  going 
on  with  one  thing  you've  done  here.  You've  always 
noticed  birds  and  studied  'em  in  the  woods,  and  you  can 
go  on  doing  it  in  a  museum.  But  there  ain't  a  thing  for 
me !  All  I've  ever  done  is  to  live  right  here  in  this  house 
ever  since  I  was  born,  and  look  out  at  the  mountains 
and  the  big  meadows  and  the  river  and  the  churchyard, 
and  keep  house  and  take  care  of  you  and  the  children. 

"  Now  the  children  are  all  gone,  and  I  haven't  the 
strength  to  take  care  of  you  the  way  you  need;  my  life 
is  all  done — there  ain't  no  more  to  it ! 

"  It's  like  a  book — there's  still  a  chapter  you  can  write, 
or  one  you  can  finish  up;  but  me — I've  come  right  down 
to  Finis,  only  the  Lord  won't  write  it  for  me.  It's  as 
if  somebody  wanted  to  scrawl  on  the  back  flyleaf  some 
thing  that  hasn't  a  thing  to  do  with  the  rest  of  the  book, 


FINIS  237 

some  scratching  stuff  in  a  furrin'  language  that  I  can't 
even  understand." 

Her  husband  did  not  contradict  her.  He  sighed 
heavily  and  they  both  fell  again  into  a  cheerless  silence. 
The  moon  rose  with  a  strange,  eerie  swiftness  over  the 
wall  of  mountain  before  them,  and  its  wavering  reflec 
tion  sprang  at  once  to  life  in  the  swirling  waters  of  the 
black  hole  in  the  Necronsett  on  the  other  side  of  the 
meadow.  The  old  woman's  heart  gave  a  painful  leap 
in  her  breast  at  the  sight.  It  was  probably  one  of  the  last 
times  she  would  see  it.  Numberless  occasions  when  she 
had  noted  it  before  hurried  through  her  mind. 

She  felt  herself  again  the  little  girl  who  had  sat  in 
summer  evenings,  miles  away  from  the  talk  of  her  elders 
in  a  happy  child's  reverie,  and  who  had  grown  dizzy  with 
watching  the  swimming  reflection  in  the  whirlpool.  She 
had  a  strange  fleeting  hallucination  that  she  was  again 
sitting  in  the  moonlight,  her  cheeks  flushed  and  her  strong 
young  pulse  beating  high  to  hear  Nathaniel's  footfall 
draw  nearer  down  the  road.  She  felt  again  the  warm, 
soft  weight  of  her  little  son,  the  first-born,  the  one  who 
had  died  young,  as  she  remembered  how  proud  she  and 
Nathaniel  had  been  when  he  first  noticed  the  moon. 

An  odd  passion  of  recollection  possessed  her.  As 
the  moon  rose  higher  she  seemed  to  be  living  over 
at  one  time  a  thousand  hours  of  her  busy,  ardent  life. 
She  looked  at  the  high,  drooping  line  of  the  mountains 
with  her  childhood's  delight  in  its  clear  outline  against 
the  sky;  she  saw  the  white  stones  of  the  old  graveyard, 
next  door,  glimmer  through  the  shadow  cast  by  the 
church  tower,  with  the  half  uneasy,  fearful  pleasure  of 
her  romantic  girlhood ;  she  felt  about  her  the  solidity  and 


238  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

permanency  of  the  old  house,  her  father's  and  her  grand 
father's  home,  with  the  joy  in  protected  security  of  her 
young  married  life;  and  through  it  all  there  ran  a  heart 
sick  realization  that  she  was,  in  fact,  a  helpless  old 
woman,  grown  too  feeble  to  conduct  her  own  life,  and 
who  was  to  be  forced  to  die  two  deaths,  one  of  the  spirit 
and  one  of  the  body. 

"  Come,  mother,"  said  Nathaniel,  rising,  "  we'd  bet 
ter  go  to  bed.  We  both  of  us  get  notiony  sitting  here  in 
the  moonlight." 

He  helped  her  raise  her  weighty  body  with  the  deftness 
of  long  practice  and  they  both  went  dully  into  the  house. 

The  knowledge  of  the  sky  and  of  the  signs  of  weather, 
which  was  almost  an  instinct  with  the  descendant  of  gen 
erations  of  farmers,  was  put  to  an  anxious  use  during 
the  days  which  followed. 

Not  since  the  days  when,  as  a  young  girl,  she  had 
roamed  the  mountains,  as  much  a  part  of  the  forest  and 
fields  as  any  wild  inhabitant,  had  she  so  scanned  the  face 
of  the  valley  which  was  her  world. 

She  had  stopped  hoping  for  any  release  from  her  sen 
tence.  She  only  prayed  now  for  one  more  clay  of  grace, 
and  into  each  day  she  crowded  a  fullness  of  life  which 
was  like  a  renewal  of  her  vigorous  youth. 

Of  late  years,  existence  had  flowed  so  uniform  a  pas 
sage  through  the  channels  of  habit  that  it  had  become 
but  half  sentient.  The  two  old  people  had  lived  in  al 
most  as  harmoniously  vacant  and  vital  a  silence  as  the 
old  trees  in  the  forest  back  of  the  house.  In  the  sur 
roundings  which  generations  of  human  use  had  worn 
to  an  exquisite  fitness  for  their  needs,  and  to  which  a 
long  lifetime  had  adjusted  their  every  action,  they  con- 


FINIS  239 

ducted  their  life  with  the  unthinking  sureness  of  a  proc 
ess  of  Nature.  But  now  the  old  woman,  feeling  exile 
close  upon  her,  drew  from  every  moment  of  the  familiar 
life  an  essential  savor. 

She  knew  there  was  no  hope  for  her;  the  repeated 
visits  of  the  doctor  and  his  decided  judgments  left  her 
no  illusions  as  to  the  possibility  of  escape.  "  The  very 
first  cold  snap  you  must  certainly  go,"  he  said,  with  the 
inflexibility  of  the  young.  "  Mr.  Prentiss  is  likely  to  have 
one  of  his  bad  turns  and  you  simply  cannot  give  him  the 
care  he  must  have.  Besides,  when  he  is  sick,  you  will 
have  to  look  after  the  fires,  and  the  slightest  exposure 
would  mean  pneumonia.  I've  just  written  your  son  so." 
He  drew  on  his  overcoat.  He  was  so  recently  from  the 
hospital  that  it  was  still  of  a  fashionable  cut  and  texture. 
"/  can't  see  anyway  why  you  object  to  going.  Your 
son  can't  afford  to  keep  you  both  here,  and  hire  some 
body  to  look  after  you  into  the  bargain.  Think  of  the 
advantages  you  have  there,  theaters  and  museums  and 
the  like." 

Mrs.  Prentiss  spoke  sharply.  "  I've  never  been  in  a 
theater  in  my  life  and  I  hope  I'll  go  to  my  grave  with 
out  being;  and  as  for  museums  and  things,  look  at  me! 
I'm  so  big  I  can  hardly  get  into  the  cars,  and  my  city 
grandchildren  are  ashamed  to  go  out  with  me  and  have 
all  the  folks  looking  at  the  fat  old  woman  from  the 
country." 

The  doctor  laughed  involuntarily  at  this  picture  as  he 
turned  away. 

"  Do  you  think  you  are  so  big  it  takes  the  whole  Ne- 
cronsett  valley  to  hold  you?"  he  called  lightly  over  his 
shoulder. 


240  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

Mrs.  Prentiss  looked  after  him  with  burning  eyes. 
What  did  he  know  about  the  continuity  of  human  life? 
He  had  told  her  himself  that  he  had  never  lived  more 
than  four  years  in  one  place.  What  did  he  know  of 
ordering  your  life,  not  only  for  yourself,  but  for  your 
parents  and  grandparents?  She  felt  often  as  she  looked 
upon  the  unchanging  line  of  the  mountains  guarding  the 
valley,  as  in  her  great-grandfather's  time,  that  she  saw 
with  the  eyes  of  her  ancestors  as  well  as  her  own.  The 
room  in  which  she  stood  had  been  her  grandmother's 
bedroom,  and  her  father  had  been  born  there,  as  she  had 
been  herself,  and  as  her  children  had  been.  In  her  child 
hood  she  had  looked  up  to  the  top  of  the  tall  chest  of 
drawers  as  to  a  mountain  peak,  and  her  children  had, 
after  her.  Every  inequality  in  the  floor  was  as  familiar 
to  her  feet  as  to  those  of  her  great-grandmother.  The 
big  chest,  where  she  had  always  kept  her  children's 
clothes,  had  guarded  hers  and  her  mother's,  and  as  often 
as  she  had  knelt  by  it,  she  had  so  vivid  a  recollection  of 
seeing  her  mother  and  her  grandmother  in  the  same  at 
titude,  that  she  seemed  to  lose  for  a  moment  the  small 
and  confining  sense  of  individual  personality,  and  to  be 
come  merged  in  a  noble  procession  of  mothers  of  the 
race. 

She  had  been  an  undisciplined  girl,  called  a  tomboy  in 
those  days,  whose  farmer  forbears  had  given  to  her  a 
pagan  passion  for  the  soil  and  the  open  sky.  Although 
brought  up  with  a  rigid  training  in  theology,  religion 
had  never  meant  more  to  her  than  a  certainty  of  hell  as 
a  punishment  for  misdeeds  which  neither  she  nor  any  of 
the  valley  people  were  likely  to  commit — murder,  suicide, 
false  swearing,  and  the  like.  Of  definite  religious  feeling 


FINIS  241 

she  had  none,  although  the  discipline  of  a  hard  if  happy 
life  had  brought  her  spiritual  life  in  an  unconsciously 
profound  form.  She  had  shrunk  from  that  discipline 
with  all  the  force  of  her  nature,  and  in  her  girl's  heart 
had  vowed  that  she  would  never  marry  and  lead  the 
slave's  life  of  a  New  England  farmer's  wife.  But  then 
had  arrived  Nathaniel,  the  big,  handsome  lad  who  had 
taken  her  wild,  shy  heart  and  lost  his  own  when  they 
first  met. 

So,  half  rebellious,  she  had  begun  the  life  of  a  wife  in 
the  old  house  from  which  her  mother  had  just  gone  to  the 
churchyard  next  door,  and  which  was  yet  filled  with  her 
brave  and  gentle  spirit.  The  old  woman,  looking  miser 
ably  about  her,  remembered  how  at  every  crisis  of  her 
life  the  old  house  had  spoken  to  her  of  the  line  of  sub 
missive  wives  and  mothers  which  lay  back  of  her,  and 
had  tamed  her  to  a  happy  resignation  in  the  common  fate 
of  women.  On  her  mother's  bed  she  had  borne  the 
agony  of  childbirth  without  a  murmur,  she  whose  strong 
young  body  had  never  known  pain  of  any  kind.  She  had 
been  a  joyful  prisoner  to  her  little  children,  she  who  had 
always  roamed  so  foot-free  in  her  girlhood,  and  with  a 
patience  inspired  by  the  thought  of  her  place  in  the  pil 
grimage  of  her  race,  she  had  turned  the  great  strength 
of  her  love  for  her  husband  toward  a  contented  accept 
ance  of  the  narrow  life  which  was  all  he  could  give  her. 

Each  smallest  detail  in  the  room  had  a  significance 
running  back  over  years.  The  ragged  cuts  in  the  window- 
sill  moved  her  to  a  sudden  recollection  of  how  naughty 
little  Hiram  had  cut  them  with  his  first  knife.  With 
what  a  repressed  intensity  she  had  loved  the  child  while 
she  had  reproved  him!  How  could  she  go  away  and 


242  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

leave  every  reminder  of  her  children !  With  a  quick  and 
characteristic  turn  she  caught  herself  in  the  flagrant  con 
tradiction  involved  in  her  reluctance  to  leave  behind  her 
mere  senseless  reminders  of  her  son  when  she  was  going 
to  his  actual  self.  And  then,  with  the  despairing  clear 
sight  of  one  in  a  crisis  of  life,  she  knew  that,  in  very 
fact,  Hiram  was  no  longer  the  boy  who  had  left  them 
years  ago.  Away  from  all  that  made  up  her  life,  under 
influences  utterly  foreign  and  alien,  he  had  spent  almost 
twice  as  many  years  as  he  had  with  her.  Not  only  had 
the  reaction  from  his  severe  training  carried  him  to  an- 
other  extreme  of  laxness,  but  as  result  of  his  continued 
absence  he  had  lost  all  contact  with  her  world.  He  no 
longer  consciously  repudiated  it,  he  had  crossed  the 
deeper  gulf  of  forgetting  it.  He  was  a  stranger  to  her. 
Always  before  the  memories  which  clung  about  every 
corner  of  the  dark  old  house  had  helped  her,  but  now  she 
was  forced  to  face  a  crisis  which  none  of  her  people  had 
known.  It  was  not  one  of  the  hardships  of  life  which 
were  to  be  accepted,  and  the  hot  rebellion  of  her  girlhood 
burned  in  her  aching  old  heart.  She  thought  resentfully 
of  the  doctor's  blind  and  stony  lack  of  understanding. 
His  last  ironic  sentence  came  to  her  mind  and  she  flamed 
at  the  recollection.  Yes,  it  did  take  the  whole  valley  to 
hold  her,  the  valley  which  was  as  much  a  part  of  her  as 
her  eyes  which  beheld  it.  There  were  moments  when 
she  stood  under  the  hazy  autumn  sky,  so  acutely  con 
scious  of  every  line  and  color  of  the  great  wall  of  moun 
tains  surrounding  her  that  she  grew  in  very  fact  to  be 
an  indivisible  portion  of  the  whole — felt  herself  as  ac 
tually  rooted  to  that  soil  and  as  permanent  under  that 
sky  as  the  great  elm  before  the  door. 


FINIS  243 

She  made  no  more  outcries  against  fate  to  her  husband, 
partly  because  of  the  anguish  which  came  upon  his  gentle 
old  face  at  the  sight  of  her  suffering,  and  partly  because 
she  felt  herself  to  have  no  tangible  reason  for  rebellion. 
During  the  last  years  they  had  gone  drearily  around  and 
around  the  circle  which  they  felt  closing  so  inexorably 
upon  them,  and  there  was  no  longer  any  use  to  wear 
themselves  out  in  futile  discussions  of  impossible  plans. 
They  had  both  been  trained  to  regard  reasonableness  as 
one  of  the  cardinal  virtues,  and  to  the  mild  nature  of  the 
old  man  it  was  a  natural  one,  so  they  tried  conscientiously 
to  force  themselves  not  only  to  act,  but  to  feel, 
"like  sensible  folks,"  as  they  put  it  bravely  to  them 
selves. 

"  Other  folks  have  gone  to  live  with  their  children, 
and  not  near  such  good  sons  as  Hiram  either,  and  they 
didn't  make  such  a  fuss  about  it,"  said  Mr.  Prentiss  one 
evening,  out  of  a  long  silence,  as  they  sat  in  front  of  the 
hearth.  He  looked  at  his  wife,  hoping  for  a  cheerful 
response,  but  her  lips  were  set  in  a  quivering  line  of  pain, 
and  the  flickering  light  showed  her  fair  broad  face  glisten 
ing  with  tears.  "  Oh,  mother! "  he  cried,  in  a  helpless 
misery  of  sympathy.  "  Oh,  mother,  don't !  I  can't  stand 
it!  If  I  could  only  do  it  for  you!  But  we  can't  stay, 
you  know." 

The  other  nodded  dumbly,  although  after  a  moment 
she  said,  "  Every  day  I  live  all  my  life  over  again,  and 
my  mother's,  and  all  my  folks.  It  has  never  seemed  as 
though  they  really  died  as  long  as  we  lived  here  same 
as  they  did.  It's  like  killing  them  all  again  to  go  away 
and  sell  the  house  to  strangers." 

There  was  a  silence  and  then,  "  Oh,  Nathaniel,  what 


244  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

was  that?"  she  cried,  her  voice  rising  in  a  quaver  of 
apprehension. 

"  The  wind,"  said  her  husband,  stirring  the  fire. 

"  I  know.  But  what  wind  ?  It  sounds  like  the  first 
beginning  of  the  wind  over  Eagle  Rock,  and  that  means 
snow !  " 

She  hastened  heavily  to  the  window,  and  raised  the 
shade.  :<  There's  a  ring  around  the  moon  as  plain  as  my 
wedding  ring !  "  And  then  as  she  looked  there  clung  to 
the  window-pane  a  single  flake  of  snow,  showing  ghastly 
white  in  the  instant  before  it  melted. 

"  Nathaniel,  the  end  has  come,"  she  said  solemnly. 
"  Help  me  get  to  bed." 

The  next  morning  there  was  a  foot  of  snow  and  the 
thermometer  was  going  steadily  down.  When  the  doctor 
arrived,  red-nosed  and  gasping  from  the  knife-like  thrusts 
of  the  wind  over  Eagle  Rock,  he  announced  that  it  was 
only  eight  above  zero,  and  he  brought  a  kindly  telegram 
from  Hiram,  saying  that  he  had  started  for  the  moun 
tains  to  accompany  his  parents  back  to  the  city.  "  I  envy 
you ! "  said  the  doctor,  blowing  on  his  stiff  fingers. 
"  Think  of  the  bliss  of  being  where  you  have  only  to 
turn  a  screw  in  your  steam-radiator  to  escape  from  this 
beastly  cold.  Your  son  will  be  here  on  the  evening  train, 
and  I'll  bring  him  right  over.  You'll  be  ready  to  start  to 
morrow,  won't  you?  You've  had  all  the  autumn  to  get 
packed  up  in." 

Mrs.  Prentiss  did  not  answer.  She  was  so  irrationally 
angry  with  him  that  she  could  not  trust  herself  to  speak. 
She  stood  looking  out  of  the  low  window  at  the  Necron- 
sett,  running  swift  and  black  between  the  white  banks. 
She  felt  a  wave  of  her  old  obsession  that  in  her  still  lived 


FINIS  245 

the  bygone  dwellers  in  the  old  house,  that  through  her 
eyes  they  still  saw  the  infinitely  dear  and  familiar  scenes. 
Something  in  her  own  attitude  reminded  her  of  how  her 
father  had  looked  as  he  stood  every  morning  at  that  same 
\vindow  and  speculated  on  the  weather.  For  a  moment 
she  had  an  almost  dizzy  conviction  that  he  did  in  all 
reality  stand  there  again. 

Then  she  heard  the  doctor  saying,  "  I'm  coming  over 
here  myself  when  you  start  for  the  station,  to  see  that 
you're  well  wrapped  up.  The  least  exposure—  He 

looked  at  Mrs.  Prentiss's  broad  and  obstinate  back,  turned 
to  her  husband,  and  tapped  his  chest  significantly. 

After  he  had  gone  the  room  was  intensely  quiet.  Mr. 
Prentiss  sat  by  the  fire,  looking  vacantly  at  his  withered 
old  hands  on  his  knees,  and  his  wife  did  not  stir  from 
the  window.  Her  heavy,  wide  figure  was  immovable, 
but  a  veritable  whirlwind  of  despair  raged  within  her. 
She  had  supposed  she  knew  all  along  how  bad  it  was 
going  to  be,  but  it  had  been  a  foolish  child's  play,  like 
shutting  your  eyes  to  pretend  you  were  blind.  Now  that 
utter  darkness  was  upon  her,  it  was  as  great  a  shock  as 
though  it  came  with  the  most  extreme  and  cruel  sur 
prise.  A  thousand  furious  fancies  went  through  her  mind, 
although  she  continued  to  gaze  out  of  the  window  with 
the  same  blank  look  of  stunned  incredulity.  The  whirl 
pool  in  the  river  caught  her  eye  and  she  had  a  wild  im 
pulse  to  throw  herself  into  it.  Even  in  her  frenzy,  how 
ever,  there  came  the  thought,  instantly  dissuading,  of  the 
scandal  in  the  village  and  family  which  such  an  action 
would  cause. 

No,  there  was  no  escape  at  all,  since  that  simple  and 
obvious  one  was  closed. 


246  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

The  valley  lay  about  her,  the  mountain  walls  iridescent 
with  snow  in  sunshine,  the  river  gleaming  with  its  curious, 
rapid,  serpentine  life,  in  all  the  peaceful  death  of  winter; 
everything  was  as  it  always  had  been.  Her  mind  refused 
to  accept  the  possibility  of  her  living  under  other  condi 
tions  with  as  irresistible  and  final  a  certainty  as  if  she 
had  been  called  upon  to  believe  she  could  live  with  her 
head  separated  from  her  body. 

And  yet,  battering  at  that  instinctive  feeling,  came  the 
knowledge  that  she  was  to  start  for  New  York  the  next 
day.  She  felt  suddenly  that  she  could  not.  "  I  can't ! 
I  can't!"  she  cried  dumbly.  "I  can't,  even  if  I  have 
to!" 

An  instant  later,  like  an  echo,  a  fiercer  gust  than  usual 
swept  down  off  the  ledge  of  rock  above  the  little  house, 
rattled  the  loose  old  window,  and  sent  a  sharp  blade  of 
icy  air  full  in  the  old  woman's  eyes.  She  gasped  and 
started  back.  And  then,  all  in  a  breath,  her  face  grew 
calm  and  smooth,  and  her  eyes  bright  with  a  sudden  re 
solve.  Without  a  moment's  hesitation,  she  turned  to 
her  husband  and  said  in  a  tone  more  like  her  old  self 
than  he  had  heard  for  some  time,  "Father,  I  wish 
you'd  go  over  to  Mrs.  Warner's  and  take  back  that 
pattern.  If  we're  going  to  leave  to-morrow,  you 

know " 

The  old  man  rose  obediently,  and  began  putting  on  his 
wraps.  His  wife  helped  him,  and  hurried  him  eagerly 
off.  When  she  was  alone,  she  tore  at  the  fastening  of 
her  gown  in  a  fury  of  haste,  baring  her  wrinkled  old 
throat  widely.  Then  without  a  glance  about  her,  she 
opened  the  door  to  the  woodshed,  stepped  out,  and  closed 
it  behind  her.  The  cold  clutched  at  her  throat  like  a 


FINIS  247 

palpable  hand  of  ice,  and  her  first  involuntary  gasp  set  her 
into  a  fit  of  coughing. 

She  sat  down  on  the  stump  where  kindlings  were  al 
ways  split  and  opened  her  gown  wider.  She  noticed  how 
fair  and  smooth  the  skin  on  her  shoulders  still  was  and 
remembered  that  her  husband  had  always  been  proud  of 
her  pretty  neck.  She  had  worn  a  low-necked  dress  when 
he  had  told  her  he  loved  her.  That  had  been  in  the 
garden,  into  which  she  could  now  look  as  she  sat  on  the 
stump.  She  had  been  picking  currants  for  tea,  and  he 
had  gone  out  to  see  her.  The  scene  came  up  before  her 
so  vividly  that  she  heard  his  voice,  and  felt  herself  turn 
to  him  with  the  light  grace  of  her  girlhood  and  cry  again, 
in  an  ecstasy  of  surprised  joy,  "  Oh,  Nathaniel! " 

A  gust  of  wind  whirled  a  handful  of  snow  against 
her  and  some  of  it  settled  on  her  bare  shoulders.  She 
watched  it  melt  and  felt  the  icy  little  trickle  with  a  curious 
aloofness.  Suddenly  she  began  to  shiver,  gripped  by  a 
dreadful  chill,  which  shook  her  like  a  strong  hand.  After 
that  she  was  very  still  again,  the  death-like  cold  penetrat 
ing  deeper  and  deeper  until  her  breath  came  in  constricted 
gasps.  She  did  not  stir  until  she  heard  the  front  door 
bang  to  her  husband's  return.  Then  she  rose  with  in 
finite  effort  and  struggled  back  into  the  kitchen.  When 
he  came  in,  she  was  standing  by  the  sink,  fumbling  idly 
with  the  dishes.  Already  her  head  was  whirling,  and  she 
scarcely  knew  what  she  was  doing. 

In  the  nightmare  of  horror  which  his  wife's  sudden 
sickness  brought  upon  him,  old  Mr.  Prentiss  felt  that  he 
could  bear  everything  except  the  sight  and  sound  of  his 
wife's  struggles  for  breath.  He  hardly  saw  the  neighbor 


248  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

women  who  filled  the  house,  taking  advantage  of  this  op 
portunity  to  inspect  the  furniture  with  an  eye  to  the  auc 
tion  which  would  follow  the  removal  of  the  old  people 
to  the  city.  He  hardly  heeded  the  doctor's  desperate 
attempts  with  all  varieties  of  new-fangled  scientific  con 
trivances  to  stay  the  hand  of  death.  He  hardly  knew  that 
his  son  had  come,  and  in  his  competent,  prosperous  way 
was  managing  everything  for  him.  He  sat  in  one  corner 
of  the  sick-room,  and  agonized  over  the  unconscious  sick 
woman,  fighting  for  every  breath. 

On  the  third  day  he  was  left  alone  with  her,  by  some 
chance,  and  suddenly  the  dreadful,  heaving  gasp  was 
still.  He  sprang  to  the  bedside,  sick  with  apprehension, 
but  his  wife  looked  up  at  him  with  recognition  in  her 
eyes.  "  This  is  the  end,  Nathaniel,"  she  said  in  so  low 
a  whisper  that  he  laid  his  ear  to  her  lips  to  hear.  "  Don't 
let  anybody  in  till  Fm  gone.  I  don't  want  'em  to  see 
how  happy  I  look."  Her  face  wore,  indeed,  an  unearthly 
look  of  beatitude. 

"  Nathaniel,"  she  went  on,  "  I  hope  there's  no  life  after 
this — for  me  anyway.  I  don't  think  I  ever  had  very 
much  soul.  It  was  always  enough  for  me  to  live  in  the 
valley  with  you.  When  I  go  back  into  the  ground  I'll 
be  where  I  belong.  I  ain't  fit  for  heaven,  and,  anyway, 
I'm  tired.  We've  lived  hard,  you  and  I,  Nathaniel;  we 
loved  hard  when  we  were  young,  and  we've  lived  all  our 
lives  right  out  to  the  end.  Now  I  want  to  rest." 

The  old  man  sat  down  heavily  in  a  chair  by  the  bed. 
His  lips  quivered,  but  he  said  nothing.  His  wife's  brief 
respite  from  pain  had  passed  as  suddenly  as  it  came,  and 
her  huge  frame  began  again  to  shake  in  the  agony  of 
straining  breath.  She  managed  to  speak  between  gasps. 


FINIS  249 

"  Don't  let  a  soul  in  here,  Nathaniel.  I'll  be  gone  in  a 
few  minutes.  I  don't  want  'em  to  see " 

The  old  man  stepped  to  the  door  and  locked  it.  As  he 
came  back,  the  sick  woman  motioned  him  to  come  closer. 
"  Natty,  I  thought  I  could  keep  it,  but  I  never  did  have 
a  secret  from  you,  and  I  can't  die  without  telling  you. 

If  there  is  a  heaven  and  hell Oh,  Natty,  I've  done 

a  wicked  thing,  and  I'm  dying  without  repenting.  I'd 
do  it  again.  That  time  you  went  to  Mrs.  Warner's  with 
the  pattern — this  cold  I  got  that  day  I  went  out " 

Her  husband  interrupted  her.  For  the  first  time  in 
years  he  did  not  call  her  "mother,"  but  used  the  pet 
name  of  their  courtship.  The  long  years  of  their  parent 
hood  had  vanished.  They  had  gone  back  to  the  days 
when  each  had  made  up  all  the  world  to  the  other.  "  I 
know,  Matey,"  he  said.  "  I  met  young  Warner  out  in 
the  road  and  give  the  pattern  to  him,  and  I  come  right 
back,  and  see  you  sitting  out  there.  I  knew  what  'twas 
for." 

His  wife  stared  at  him,  amazement  silencing  her. 

"  I  thought  it  was  the  only  thing  left  I  could  do  for 
you,  Matey,  to  let  you  stay  there.  You  know  I  never 
wished  for  anything  but  that  you  should  have  what  you 
wanted."  He  had  spoken  in  a  steady,  even  tone,  which 
now  broke  into  an  irrepressible  wail  of  selfish,  human 
anguish.  "  But  you  leave  me  all  alone,  Matey !  How 
can  I  get  on  without  you!  I  thought  I'd  die  myself  as 
I  sat  inside  the  house  watching  you.  You're  all  I  ever 
had,  Matey!  All  there  has  ever  been  in  the  world  for 
me!" 

The  old  woman  stopped  her  gasping  by  a  superhuman 
effort.  "  Why,  Natty,  I  never  supposed  you  thought  so 


250  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

much  of  me  still.  I  thought  that  had  gone  when  we  got 
old.  But,  oh,  my  dear!  I'm  afraid  I've  dragged  you 
down  with  me  to  destruction.  It  wa'n't  any  matter  about 
me,  but  I'm  afraid  you've  lost  your  soul.  That  was  a 
wicked  thing  for  us  to  do !  " 

Her  husband  lifted  his  tear-stained,  old  face  and  laid 
it  on  the  pillow  beside  her.  He  did  not  put  his  arms  about 
her,  as  a  younger  lover  or  one  of  another  country  might 
have  done,  but  because  he  was  a  man  who  had  loved 
deeply  all  his  life,  his  answer  came  with  the  solemn  sig 
nificance  and  sincerity  of  a  speech  before  the  Judgment 
Seat.  "  I  ain't  afraid  of  hell  if  you're  there,  Matey,"  he 
said. 

His  wife  turned  her  head  and  looked  at  him,  her  whole 
face  transfigured.  She  was  no  longer  a  fat  old  woman  on 
her  deathbed.  Before  his  very  eyes  she  grew  again  to 
be  the  girl  among  the  currant  bushes,  and  with  the  same 
amazed  intonation  of  incredulous  joy  she  cried  his  name 
aloud.  "Oh,  Nathaniel!"  she  said,  and  with  the  word 
the  longed  for  Finis  was  written  to  her  life. 


A  VILLAGE  MUNCHAUSEN 

I 

WHEN  I  was  a  little  girl,  and  lived  in  Hillsboro  with 
my  grandparents,  there  were  two  Decoration  Days  in 
every  year.  One  was  when  all  we  school-children  took 
flowers  out  to  the  cemetery  and  decorated  the  graves  of 
the  soldiers;  and  the  other  was  when  the  peonies  and 
syringas  bloomed,  and  grandfather  and  I  went  alone  to 
put  a  bouquet  on  the  grave  of  old  Jedediah  Chilling- 
worth. 

Grandfather  did  this  as  a  sort  of  penance  for  a  great 
mistake  he  had  made,  and  I  think  it  was  with  the  idea 
of  making  an  atonement  by  confession  that  he  used  al 
ways  to  tell  me  the  story  of  his  relations  with  the  old 
man.  At  any  rate,  he  started  his  narrative  when  we  left 
the  house  and  began  to  walk  out  to  the  cemetery,  and 
ended  it  as  he  laid  the  flowers  on  the  neglected  grave. 
I  trotted  along  beside  him,  faster  and  faster  as  he  grew 
more  and  more  interested,  and  then  stood  breathless  on 
the  other  side  of  the  grave  as  he  finished,  in  his  cracked 
old  voice,  harsh  with  emotion. 

The  first  part  of  his  story  happened  a  very  long 
time  ago,  even  before  grandfather  was  born,  when 
Jedediah  Chillingworth  first  began  to  win  for  himself 
the  combination  title  of  town-fool  and  town-liar.  By  the 
time  grandfather  was  a  half-grown  boy,  big  enough  to 
join  in  the  rough  crowd  of  village  lads  who  tormented 

251 


252  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

Jed,  the  old  dizzard  had  been  for  years  the  local  butt.  Of 
course  I  never  saw  him,  but  I  have  heard  so  much  about 
him  from  all  the  gossips  in  the  village,  and  grandfather 
used  to  describe  him  so  vividly,  that  I  feel  as  if  I  know 
all  about  him. 

For  about  ten  years  of  his  youth  Jedediah  had  been 
away  from  our  little  Vermont  town,  wandering  in  the 
great  world.  From  his  stories,  he  had  been  everywhere  on 
the  map.  In  the  evening,  around  the  stove  in  the  village 
post-office,  when  somebody  read  aloud  f  fbnv  the  news 
paper  a  remarkable  event,  all  the  loafers  turned  to  Jed 
with  wide,  malicious  grins,  to  hear  him  cap  it  with  a  yet 
more  marvelous  tale  of  what  had  happened  to  him.  They 
gathered  around  the  simple-minded  little  old  man,  their 
tongues  in  their  cheeks,  and  drew  from  him  one  silly, 
impossible,  boastful  story  after  another.  They 
made  him  amplify  circumstantially  by  clumsily  artful 
questions,  and  poked  one  another  in  the  ribs  with 
delight  over  his  deluded  joy  in  their  sympathetic 
interest. 

As  he  grew  older,  his  yarns  solidified  like  folk-lore, 
into  a  consecrated  and  legendary  form,  which  he  repeated 
endlessly  without  variation.  There  were  many  of  them — 
"  How  I  drove  a  team  of  four  horses  over  a  falling 
bridge,"  "  How  I  interviewed  the  King  of  Portugal," 
"  How  I  saved  big  Sam  Harden's  life  in  the  forest  fire." 
But  the  favorite  one  was,  "  How  I  rode  the  moose  into 
Kennettown,  Massachusetts."  This  was  the  particular 
flaunting,  sumptuous  yarn  which  everybody  made  old  Jed 
bring  out  for  company.  If  a  stranger  remarked,  "  Old 
man  Chillingworth  can  tell  a  tale  or  two,  can't  he?" 
everybody  started  up  eagerly  with  the  cry :  "  Oh,  but 


A  VILLAGE  MUNCHAUSEN  253 

have  you  heard  him  tell  the  story  of  how  he  rode  the 
moose  into  Kennettown,  Massachusetts?" 

If  the  answer  was  negative,  all  business  was  laid  aside 
until  the  withered  little  old  man  was  found,  pottering 
about  some  of  the  odd  jobs  by  which  he  earned  his  living. 
He  was  always  as  pleased  as  Punch  to  be  asked  to  per 
form,  and  laid  aside  his  tools  with  a  foolish,  bragging 
grin  on  his  face,  of  which  grandfather  has  told  me  so 
many  times  that  it  seems  as  if  I  had  really  seen  it. 

This  is  how  he  told  the  story,  always  word  for  word 
the  same  way: 

"  Wa'al,  sir,  I've  had  queer  things  happen  to  me  in  my 
time,  hain't  I,  boys?" — at  which  the  surrounding  crowd 
always  wagged  mocking  heads — "  but  nothin'  to  beat  that. 
When  I  was  ashore  wunst,  from  one  of  my  long  v'y'ges 
on  the  sea,  I  was  to  Kennettown,  Massachusetts." 

"  How'd  ye  come  to  go  there,  Jed  ?  "  This  was  a  ques 
tion  never  to  be  omitted. 

"  Oh,  I  had  a  great  sight  of  money  to  take  to  some 
folks  that  lived  there.  The  captain  of  our  ship  had  died 
at  sea,  and  he  give  me  nine  thousand  five  hundred  and 
seventy-two  English  gold  guineas,  to  take  to  his  brother 
and  sister." 

Here  he  always  stared  around  at  the  company,  and 
accepted  credulously  the  counterfeit  coin  of  grotesquely 
exaggerated  amazement  which  was  given  him. 

"  Wa'al,  sir,  I  done  it.  I  give  the  gold  to  them  as  it 
belonged  to,  and  I  was  to  leave  town  on  the  noon  stage 
coach.  I  was  stayin'  in  the  captain's  brother's  house.  It 
was  spang  up  against  the  woods,  on  the  edge  of  town; 
and,  I  tell  ye,  woods  was  woods  in  them  days. 

"  The  mornin'  I  was  to  leave  I  was  up  early,  lookin' 


254  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

out  of  my  window,  when  what  should  I  see  with  these 
mortial  eyes  but  a  gre't  bull  moose,  as  big  as  two  yoke  o' 
oxen,  comin'  along  toward  the  house.  He  sort  o'  stag 
gered  along,  and  then  give  a  gre't  sigh  I  could  hear  from 
my  room — I  was  on  the  ground  floor — fell  down  on  his 
knees,  and  laid  his  head  on  the  ground  's  if  he  was  too 
beat  out  to  go  another  step.  Wa'al,  sir,  I  never  waited, 
not  long  enough  even  to  fetch  a  holler  to  wake  the  folks. 
I  just  dove  out  o'  the  window,  and  made  for  him  as  fast 
as  I  could  lick  in.  As  I  went  by  the  wood-pile,  I  grabbed 
up  a  big  stick  of  wood " 

"  What  kind  of  wood?"  everybody  asked  in  chorus. 

'Twas  a  big  stick  of  birch-wood,  with  the  white  bark 
on  it  as  clean  as  writin'-paper.  I  grabbed  that  up  for  a 
club — 'twas  the  only  thing  in  sight — and  when  I  got 
to  the  moose  I  hit  him  a  clip  on  the  side  of  the  head  as 
hard  as  I  could  lay  on.  He  didn't  so  much  as  open  an 
eye,  but  I  saw  he  was  still  breathin',  and  I  climbed  up  on 
his  back  so's  to  get  a  good  whack  at  the  top  of  his  head. 
And  then,  sir,  by  Jupiter!  he  riz  right  up  like  a  earth 
quake  under  me,  and  started  off  at  forty  miles  an  hour. 
He  throwed  his  head  back  as  he  run,  and  ketched  me 
right  between  his  horns,  like  a  nut  in  a  nutcracker. 
I  couldn't  have  got  out  of  them  horns — no,  sir, 
a  charge  of  powder  couldn't  scarcely  have  loosened 
me." 

There  was  another  pause  at  this  place  for  the  outcries 
of  astonishment  and  marvel  which  were  never  lacking. 
Then  Jed  went  on,  mumbling  his  toothless  gums  in  de 
light  over  his  importance. 

"  Wa'al,  sir,  I  dassent  tell  ye  how  long  we  careered 
around  them  woods  and  pastures,  for,  after  a  while,  he 


A  VILLAGE  MUNCHAUSEN  255 

got  so  plumb  crazy  that  he  run  right  out  into  the  open 
country.  I'd  hit  him  a  whack  over  the  head  with  my 
stick  of  wood  every  chanst  I  got  and  he  was  awful  weak 
anyhow,  so  he'd  kind  o'  stagger  whenever  he  made  a 
sharp  turn.  By  an'  by  we  got  to  goin'  toward  town. 
Somehow  he'd  landed  himself  in  the  road;  an',  sir,  we 
rid  up  to  the  hotel  like  a  coach  and  four,  and  he  drapped 
dead  in  front  of  the  steps,  me  stickin'  as  fast  between  his 
horns  as  if  I'd  'a'  growed  to  him.  Yes,  sir,  they  ackchally 
had  to  saw  one  of  them  horns  off'n  his  head  before  they 
got  me  out." 

He  came  to  a  full  stop  here,  but  this  was  not  the  end. 

"What  became  of  the  horns,  Jed?  Why  didn't  ye 
bring  'em  along?  " 

"  I  did  take  the  one  they  sawed  off,  to  give  to  my 
partner,  big  Sam  Harden.  He  was  the  biggest  man  I 
ever  see,  Sam  Harden  was.  I  left  th'  other  horn  in  Ken- 
nettown  for  the  captain's  sister.  She  was  as  smart  an' 
handsome  a  widow-woman  as  ever  I  see,  an'  I  wanted  for 
her  to  have  a  keepsake  from  me." 

This  was  really  the  end.  The  circle  of  inquisitors  left 
their  unconscious  victim  nodding  and  grinning  to  himself, 
and  went  on  down  the  road.  Grandfather  said  he  still 
felt  mean  all  over  to  remember  how  they  laughed  among 
themselves,  and  how  they  pointed  out  to  the  stranger 
the  high  lights  in  the  story. 

"  Not  only  ain't  there  never  been  seen  a  moose  in  the 
State  of  Massachusetts,  and  not  only  are  a  moose's  horns 
set  too  wide  to  catch  a  little  squinch  of  a  man  like  Jed, 
but  what  do  you  think? — there  ain't  no  Kennettown  in 
Massachusetts!  No,  nor  in  any  other  State.  No,  nor 
never  was.  Old  Jed  just  made  the  town  up  out  of  his 


256  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

head,  like  the  moose,  an'  the  money,  and  the  birch-bark, 
and  the  handsome  widow.    Don't  he  beat  all?  " 


II 

My  grandfather  was  one  of  these  boys ;  in  fact,  he  al 
ways  used  to  say  he  was  the  ringleader,  but  that  may 
have  been  another  form  of  his  penance.  As  he  grew  up 
he  began  to  work  into  his  father's  business  of  tanning 
leather,  and  by  and  by,  when  a  man  grown,  he  traveled 
down  to  a  big  tannery  at  Newtonville,  in  Massachusetts, 
to  learn  some  new  processes  in  leather-curing. 

When  grandfather  got  along  to  this  part  of  the  story 
he  began  stretching  his  long  legs  faster  and  faster,  until 
I  was  obliged  to  trot  along,  panting.  He  always  lived 
the  hurried  last  part  over  again,  and  so  did  I,  although  it 
happened  so  long  before  I  was  born. 

One  evening  he  was  asked  to  tea  by  the  mother  of  the 
prettiest  girl  in  the  village — she  afterward  became  my 
grandmother — and  was  taken  into  the  "  best  room"  to 
see  all  the  family  curiosities.  There  were  wax  flowers 
and  silhouettes  and  relics  of  every  description.  Mrs. 
Hamilton  spared  him  not  one  of  these  wonders. 

"  This,"  she  said,  "  is  the  chain  that  was  made  of  my 
grandfather's  hair.  It  was  finished  and  brought  home 
on  a  Wednesday,  and  Thursday,  the  next  day,  grand 
father  was  burned  up  in  the  great  tannery  fire,  and  this 
was  all  my  grandmother  had  to  remember  him  by.  These 
are  the  front  teeth  of  a  savage  that  my  uncle  Josiah 
Abijah  killed  in  the  South  Sea  Islands.  Uncle  Josiah 
Abijah  always  said  it  was  either  him  or  the  black  man, 
but  I  have  always  felt  that  it  was  murder,  just  the  same. 


A  VILLAGE  MUNCHAUSEN  257 

And  this  is  the  stick  of  birch-wood  that  a  sailor-man, 
who  came  here  once  to  see  my  mother,  killed  a  bull  moose 
with." 

My  grandmother  has  told  me  that  never  before  or  since 
did  she  see  a  human  face  change  as  did  grandfather's. 

"  What  ?  "  he  shouted,  and  his  voice  cracked. 

"  Yes,  it  sounds  queer,  but  it's  so.  It's  the  only  time 
a  moose  was  ever  seen  here,  and  folks  thought  the  wolves 
must  have  chased  it  till  it  was  crazy  or  tired  out.  This 
sailor-man,  who  happened  to  be  here,  saw  it,  ran  out, 
snatched  up  a  stick  from  the  wood-pile,  and  went  at  that 
great  animal  all  alone.  Folks  say  he  was  the  bravest 
man  this  town  ever  saw.  He  got  right  up  on  its 
back •" 

Grandmother  said  grandfather  had  turned  so  pale  by 
this  time  that  she  thought  he  was  going  to  faint  and  he 
sat  down  as  if  somebody  had  knocked  him  down.  On 
the  dusty  road  to  the  cemetery,  however,  he  only  strode 
along  the  faster,  half  forgetting  the  little  girl  who  dragged 
at  his  hand,  and  turned  a  sympathetically  agitated  face 
up  to  his  narrative. 

Mrs.  Hamilton  went  on  through  the  whole  incident, 
telling  every  single  thing  just  the  way  old  Jed  did.  She 
showed  the  dark  places  on  the  birch-bark  where  the 
blood  had  stained  it,  and  she  said  the  skull  of  the  animal, 
with  its  one  horn  sawed  off,  was  over  among  the  relics 
in  her  aunt's  home. 

"  My  Aunt  Maria  was  accounted  a  very  good-looking 
woman  in  her  day,  and  there  were  those  that  thought 
she  might  have  taken  a  second  husband,  if  the  sailor  had 
been  so  disposed.  He  was  so  brave  and  so  honest,  bring 
ing  all  that  money  from  my  uncle,  the  sea-captain,  when, 


258  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

goodness  knows,  he  might  have  run  off  with  every  cent  of 
it,  and  nobody  been  any  the  wiser !  " 

At  this  grandfather  gave  a  loud  exclamation  and  stood 
up,  shaking  his  head  as  if  he  had  the  ague.  He  just 
couldn't  believe  his  ears,  he  said. 

"  No !  No !  No!  It  can't  be  the  same ! "  he  said  over 
and  over.  "  Why,  he  said  it  happened  in  Kennettown." 

"  Well,  now! "  said  Mrs.  Hamilton,  surprised. 
"Where  did  you  ever  get  hold  of  that  old  name?  I 
didn't  suppose  a  soul  but  some  of  our  old  folks  remem 
bered  that.  Why,  Newtonville  wasn't  named  that  but 
six  months.  Folks  got  mad  at  the  Kennetts  for  being  so 
highfalutin'  over  having  the  town  named  after  them, 
and  so  'twas  changed  back." 

Grandfather  said  he'd  no  notion  of  another  word  she 
said  after  that.  When  he  went  back  to  his  room,  he 
found  a  letter  from  home,  telling  him  all  the  news,  and 
mentioning,  among  other  things,  that  old  Jedediah  Chil- 
lingworth  wasn't  expected  to  live  much  longer.  Age  had 
withered  the  little  old  man  until  there  wasn't  enough  of 
him  left  to  go  on  living.  Grandfather  usually  reached 
this  part  of  the  story  just  as  we  arrived  under  the  big 
maples  that  stand  on  each  side  of  the  cemetery  gate,  and 
always  stopped  short  to  say  solemnly : 

"  Thank  the  Lord!  I've  two  things  to  my  credit.  I 
never  waited  one  minute  to  start  back  to  Hillsboro,  and 
from  that  time  on  I  wanted  to  do  what  was  right  by  the 
old  man,  even  if  it  did  turn  out  so  different." 

Then  we  went  on  into  the  cemetery,  and  paced  slowly 
along  the  winding  paths  as  he  continued: 

"  I  got  to  Hillsboro  late  one  night,  and  I'd  'most  killed 
my  horse  to  do  it.  They  said  Jedediah  was  still  alive,  but 


A  VILLAGE  MUNCHAUSEN  259 

wasn't  expected  to  last  till  morning.  I  went  right  up  to 
his  little  old  shack,  without  waiting  to  see  my  folks  or  to 
get  a  mouthful  to  eat.  A  whole  lot  of  the  neighbors  had 
come  in  to  watch  with  him,  and  even  then,  with  the  old 
dizzard  actually  dying,  they  were  making  a  fool  of  him. 

"  He  was  half  propped  up  in  bed — he  wasn't  bigger 
than  my  fist  by  that  time — with  red  spots  in  his  cheeks, 
and  his  eyes  like  glass,  and  he  was  just  ending  up  that 
moose  story.  The  folks  were  laughing  and  winking  and 
nudging  one  another  in  the  ribs,  just  the  way  I  used  to.  I 
was  done  up  with  my  long,  hard  ride,  and  some  nervous, 
I  guess,  for  it  fair  turned  my  stomach  to  see  them. 

"  I  waited  till  they  were  all  through  laughing,  and  then 
I  broke  loose.  I  just  gave  them  a  piece  of  my  mind! 
1  Look-a-here,  you  fellows ! '  I  said.  '  You  think  you're 
awful  smart,  don't  you,  making  fun  of  poor  old  Jed  as  he 
lies  a-dying?  Now,  listen  to  me.  I've  ridden  forty  miles 
over  the  mountains  to  get  here  before  he  goes,  and  make 
every  man  jack  of  you  beg  the  old  man's  pardon.  That 
story's  true.  I've  just  found  out  that  every  word  of  it  is 
absolutely,  literally  the  way  it  happened.  Newtonville, 
where  I'm  staying  in  Massachusetts,  used  to  be  called 
Kennettown,  and  Jedediah  did  take  the  money  there — 
yes,  that  exact  sum  we've  laughed  at  all  these  years. 
They  call  him  the  honestest  man  in  the  world  over  there. 
They've  got  the  stick  of  birch-wood,  with  the  blood 
stains  on  it,  and  the  moose's  skull,  with  the  horn  sawed 
off,  and  there  are  lots  of  old  people  who  remember  all 
about  it.  And  I'm  here  to  say  I  believe  old  Jed's  been  tell 
ing  the  truth,  not  only  about  that,  but  about  all  his  ad 
ventures.  I  don't  believe  he's  ever  lied  to  us ! ' 

"  I  felt  so  grand  and  magnanimous,"  grandfather  went 


260  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

on,  "  to  think  how  I  was  making  it  up  to  the  poor  old  man, 
and  so  set  up  over  bringing  a  piece  of  news  that  just 
paralyzed  everybody  with  astonishment.  They  all  jumped 
up,  yelling  and  carrying  on.  '  What?  That  story  true! 
Well,  did  you  ever !  Wouldn't  that  beat  all  ?  To  think 
old  Jed's  been  telling " 

"  And  then  we  all  thought  of  him,  and  started  toward 
the  bed  to  say  how  bad  we  felt. 

"  I'll  never  forget  how  he  looked.  His  eyes  were  fairly 
coming  out  of  his  head,  and  his  face  was  as  white  as 
paper.  But  that  wasn't  the  dreadful  thing.  What  al 
ways  comes  back  to  me  whenever  I  think  of  him  is  the 
expression  on  his  face.  You  could  just  see  his  heart 
breaking.  He  was  so  hurt,  so  surprised,  so  ashamed, 
that  it  wasn't  decent  to  look  at  him.  But  we  couldn't 
look  away.  We  stood  there,  hanging  our  heads — I  never 
felt  so  mean  in  my  life — while  he  tried  to  get  breath 
enough  to  say  something.  And  then  he  screamed  out — 
'twas  dreadful  to  hear: 

'  Why,  didn't  you  fellers  believe  me  ?    Did  you  think 
I  was  lyin'?'" 

Here  grandfather  stopped  and  blew  his  nose,  and  I 
choked. 

'  Those  were  his  last  words.  He  had  some  kind  of  a 
spasm,  and  never  came  to  enough  to  know  anything  before 
he  died.  Those  were  the  last  words  he  said;  and  though 
they  told  us  that  in  the  coffin  he  looked  just  as  he  always 
had,  only  more  quiet,  with  the  foolish  look  gone,  we  were 
all  of  us  ashamed  to  look  the  dead  man  in  the  face." 

Here  grandfather  laid  the  flowers  on  the  unkempt 
grave,  as  if  to  serve  as  an  "  Amen  "  to  his  confession. 
After  this  I  always  went  around  and  held  his  hand 


A  VILLAGE  MUNCHAUSEN  261 

tightly,  and  we  stood  very  still.     It  was  the  solemnest 
time  of  the  year. 


Ill 

All  this  used  to  happen,  as  I  said,  when  I  was  a  little 
girl ;  but  I,  too,  grew  up,  as  grandfather  grew  bent  and 
feeble.  When  he  was  an  old,  old  man  of  eighty-five,  and 
when  I  had  been  away  from  Hillsboro  several  years  teach 
ing  school,  the  last  of  my  grandmother's  relatives  in  New- 
tonville  died.  I  was  sent  for  to  decide  what  should  be 
done  with  the  few  family  relics,  and  one  Saturday  and 
Sunday  I  went  all  through  the  little  old  house,  looking 
over  the  things. 

In  the  garret  I  came  across  the  moose-skull  with  one 
horn.  It  made  me  feel  queer  to  think  what  a  part  it  had 
played  in  the  development  of  my  grandfather's  honorable 
and  tender  old  soul.  There  were  a  few  sticks  of  furni 
ture,  some  daguerrotypes  and  silhouettes,  and  a  drawer- 
ful  of  yellow  papers.  The  first  I  sent  home  to  Hillsboro 
to  grandmother.  I  took  the  papers  back  to  the  town 
where  I  was  teaching,  to  look  over  them. 

Among  other  things  was  a  quaint  old  diary  of  my 
grandmother's  great-aunt,  she  that  was  the  buxom  widow 
of  Jed's  story.  It  was  full  of  homely  items  of  her  rustic 
occupations ;  what  day  she  had  "  sett  the  broune  hen," 
and  how  much  butter  was  made  the  first  month  she  had 
the  "  party-colored  cowe  from  over  the  mount'n."  I 
glanced  idly  at  these  faded  bits  of  insignificant  news, 
when  I  was  electrified  by  seeing  the  following  entry: 

This  day  came  to  my  Bro.  Amos  and  Me,  a  sea-man,  bringeing  news 
of  my  Bro.  Elijah's  the  capt'n's  dethe,  and  allso  mutch  monie  in  gold, 


262  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

sent  to  us  by  our  Bro.  The  sea-man  is  the  greatest  in  size  aver  I 
saw.  No  man  in  towne  his  hed  can  reach  so  mutch  as  to  hissholder. 
And  comely  withal. 


The  words  fairly  whirled  on  the  page  before  my  aston 
ished  eyes.  Where  was  the  image  of  the  ill-favored  little 
old  Jed,  so  present  to  my  imagination  ?  I  read  on  breath 
lessly,  skipping  news  of  the  hen-house  and  barnyard, 
until  I  came  upon  this,  the  only  other  reference,  but  quite 
sufficient : 

This  day  the  sea-man,  Samuel  Harden,  left  us. 

The  self-restrained  woman  had  said  nothing  of  any 
disappointment  she  might  have  felt.  The  item  stood 
quite  alone,  however,  in  a  significant  isolation.  At 
least  on  that  day  she  had  not  noticed  the  number  of 
eggs. 

I  doubt  if  grandfather  himself  had  been  more  excited 
when  he  saw  the  birch-wood  club  than  I  was  to  read  those 
few  words.  I  could  hardly  wait  till  the  next  Saturday  to 
rush  back  to  Hillsboro,  and  relieve  the  poor  old  man  of 
the  burden  of  remorse  he  had  carried  so  faithfully  and  so 
mistakenly  all  these  years,  and  to  snatch  the  specious 
crown  of  martyrdom  from  that  shameless  thief  of  an 
other  man's  exploits. 

And  yet,  when  I  finally  arrived  at  Hillsboro,  I  found 
it  not  so  easy  to  begin.  Some  strange  spell,  exhaled  from 
the  unchanging  aspect  of  the  old  house  and  the  old  peo 
ple,  fell  on  me,  and,  though  I  tried  several  times,  I  could 
not  find  a  suitable  opening.  On  Sunday  morning  grand 
father  asked  me  if  I  would  help  him  to  get  out  to  Jed's 
grave.  The  peonies  and  syringas  were  in  bloom,  and 


A  VILLAGE  MUNCHAUSEN  263 

grandmother  had  the  bouquet  made  up  ready.  Drawing 
me  aside,  she  told  me  that  grandfather  was  really  too  in 
firm  to  try  to  make  the  expedition  at  all,  and  certainly 
could  not  go  alone.  Even  then  I  could  find  no  words  to 
tell  her.  I  thought  it  might  be  easier  to  do  so  out  of 
doors. 

It  was  the  middle  of  a  bright  spring  morning,  when  we 
started  off,  grandfather  leaning  on  his  cane  and  holding 
to  my  arm,  while  I  carried  the  great  clump  of  red  peonies 
and  white  syringas.  The  sun  was  warm,  but  a  cool 
breeze  blew  down  from  the  mountains,  and  grandfather 
hobbled  along  bravely. 

It  made  me  feel  like  a  little  girl  again  to  have  him 
begin  the  story  of  the  moose,  and  tell  it  word  for  word  as 
he  always  had.  He  was  forced  to  stop  often  now,  and 
wait  for  breath  to  come  back  to  him.  At  each  of  these 
halts  beside  the  road,  which  was  white  in  the  clear 
spring  sunshine,  it  was  harder  and  harder  to  think  of 
breaking  in  on  him  with  my  discovery. 

As  he  finally  told  about  Jedediah's  wounded  virtue  on 
his  deathbed — that  outcry  which  seemed  to  me  the  most 
brazen  part  of  the  whole  imposture — suddenly  my  heart 
softened,  and  I,  too,  believed  that  by  that  time  of  his 
life  old  Jed  was — I  really  don't  know  just  what  it  was 
that  I  believed,  but  it  was  something  as  comforting  as  the 
quiet  warmth  of  the  sunshine. 

We  were  standing  by  the  sunken  old  grave  when  grand 
father  finished.  I  looked  at  him,  the  sun  shining  down 
on  his  bent  figure  and  bared  white  head,  the  flowers  re 
flecting  their  brightness  up  into  his  withered  old  face, 
and  a  lump  came  into  my  throat.  I  could  not  have  told 
him  if  I  had  wished  to. 


264  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

"  We  were  ashamed  to  look  the  dead  man  in  the  face," 
he  said  humbly,  and  laid  the  flowers  down  on  the  young 
grass. 

Then  I  went  around  and  held  his  dear  old  hand  tightly 
in  mine ;  and  we  stood  very  still  for  a  long,  long  time. 


THE  ARTIST 

"  AFTER  the  sickening  stench  of  personality  in  the 
atrical  life,"  the  great  Madame  Orloff  told  the  doctor 
with  her  usual  free-handed  use  of  language,  "  it  is  like 
breathing  a  thin,  pure  air  to  be  here  again  with  our  dear 
inhuman  old  Vieyra.  He  hypnotizes  me  into  his  own 
belief  that  nothing  matters — not  broken  hearts,  nor  death, 
nor  success,  nor  first  love,  nor  old  age — nothing  but  the 
chiaroscuro  of  his  latest  acquisition." 

The  picture-dealer  looked  at  her  in  silence,  bringing 
the  point  of  his  white  beard  up  to  his  chin  with  a  medita 
tive  fist.  The  big  surgeon  gazed  about  him  with  appre 
ciative  eyes,  touched  his  mustache  to  his  gold-lined  coffee- 
cup,  and  sighed  contentedly.  '  You're  not  the  only  one, 
my  dear  Olga,"  he  said,  "  who  finds  Vieyra's  hard  heart  a 
blessing.  When  I  am  here  in  his  magnificent  old  den, 
listening  to  one  of  his  frank  accounts  of  his  own  artistic 
acumen  and  rejoicing  in  his  beautiful  possessions,  why  the 
rest  of  the  world — real  humanity — seems  in  retrospect 
like  one  great  hospital  full  of  shrieking  incurables." 

"Oh,  humanity—  — !"  The  actress  thrust  it  away 
with  one  of  her  startling,  vivid  gestures. 

"  You  think  it  very  clever,  my  distinguished  friends, 
to  discuss  me  before  my  face,"  commented  the  old  picture- 
dealer  indifferently.  He  fingered  the  bright-colored  deco 
rations  on  his  breast,  looking  down  at  them  with  absent 
eyes.  After  a  moment  he  added,  "  and  to  show  your 
in-ti-mate  knowledge  of  my  character." 

265 


266  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

Only  its  careful  correctness  betrayed  the  foreignness  of 
his  speech. 

There  was  a  pause  in  which  the  three  gazed  idly  at  the 
fire's  reflection  in  the  brass  of  the  superb  old  andirons. 
Then,  "  Haven't  you  something  new  to  show  us?  "  asked 
the  woman.  "  Some  genuine  Masaccio,  picked  up  in  a 
hill-town  monastery — a  real  Ribera?" 

The  small  old  Jew  drew  a  long  breath.  "  Yes,  I  have 
something  new."  He  hesitated,  opened  his  lips,  closed 
them  again  and,  looking  at  the  fire,  "  Oh  yes,  very  new 
indeed — new  to  me." 

"Is  it  here?"  The  great  surgeon  looked  about  the 
picture-covered  walls. 

"  No;  I  have  it  in — you  know  what  you  call  the  inner 
sanctuary — the  light  here  is  not  good  enough." 

The  actress  stood  up,  her  glittering  dress  flashing  a 
thousand  eyes  at  the  fire.  "  Let  me  see  it,"  she  com 
manded.  "  Certainly  I  would  like  to  see  anything  that 
was  new  to  you ! " 

'  You  shall  amuse  yourself  by  identifying  the  artist 
without  my  aid,"  said  old  Vieyra. 

He  opened  a  door,  held  back  a  portiere,  let  his  guests 
pass  through  into  a  darkened  room,  turned  on  a  softly 
brilliant  light,  and:  "  Whom  do  you  make  the  artist?" 
he  said.  He  did  not  look  at  the  picture.  He  looked  at  the 
faces  of  his  guests,  and  after  a  long  silent  pause,  he  smiled 
faintly  into  his  beard.  "  Let  us  go  back  to  the  fire," 
he  said,  and  clicked  them  into  darkness  again. 

"  And  what  do  you  say  ?  "  he  asked  as  they  sat  down. 

"  By  Jove!  "  cried  the  doctor.     "  By  Jove!  " 

Madame  Orloff  turned  on  the  collector  the  somber  glow 
of  her  deep-set  eyes.  "  I  have  dreamed  it,"  she  said. 


THE  ARTIST  267 

"  It  is  real,"  said  Vieyra.  "  You  are  the  first  to  see 
it.  I  wished  to  observe  how " 

"  It's  an  unknown  Vermeer ! "  The  doctor  brought 
his  big  white  hand  down  loudly  on  this  discovery.  "  No 
body  but  Vermeer  could  have  done  the  plaster  wall  in 
the  sunlight.  And  the  girl's  strange  gray  head-dress 
must  be  seventeenth-century  Dutch  of  some  province  I 
don't " 

"  I  am  a  rich  man,  for  a  picture-dealer,"  said  Vieyra, 
"  but  only  national  governments  can  afford  to  buy  Ver- 
meers  nowadays." 

"  But  you  picked  it  up  from  some  corner,  some  attic, 
some  stable " 

"  Yes,  I  picked  it  up  from  a  stable,"  said  the  collector. 

The  actress  laid  her  slender,  burning  fingers  on  his  cool 
old  hand.  "Tell  us— tell  us,"  she  urged.  "There  is 
something  different  here." 

'  Yes,  there  is  something  different,"  he  stirred  in  his 
chair  and  thrust  out  his  lips.  "  So  different  that  I  don't 
know  if  you " 

"  Try  me !  try  me !  "  she  assured  him  ardently.  "  You 
have  educated  me  well  to  your  own  hard  standards  all 
these  years." 

At  this  he  looked  at  her,  startled,  frowning,  attentive, 
and  ended  by  shaking  off  her  hand.  "  No,  I  will  not  tell 
you." 

'  You  shall "  her  eyes  commanded,  adjured  him. 

There  was  a  silence.    "  I  will  understand,"  she  said  under 
her  breath. 

"  You  will  not  understand,"  he  said  in  the  same  tone ; 
but  aloud  he  began :  "  I  heard  of  it  first  from  an  Ameri 
can  picture-dealer  over  here  scraping  up  a  mock-Barbizon 


268  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

collection  for  a  new  millionaire.  He  wanted  to  get  my 
judgment,  he  said,  on  a  canvas  that  had  been  brought  in 
to  him  by  a  cousin  of  his  children's  governess.  I  was  to 
be  sure  to  see  it  when  I  went  to  New  York — you  knew, 
did  you  not,  that  I  had  been  called  to  New  York  to  tes 
tify  in  the  prosecution  of  Paullsen  for  selling  a  signed 
copy  ?  " 

"  Did  you  really  go  ?  "  asked  the  doctor.  "  I  thought 
you  swore  that  nothing  could  take  you  to  America.'* 

"  I  went,"  said  the  old  man  grimly.  "  Paullsen  did  me 
a  bad  turn  once,  thirty  years  ago.  And  while  I  was  there 
I  went  to  see  the  unknown  canvas.  The  dealer  half 
apologized  for  taking  my  time — said  he  did  not  as  a  rule 
pay  any  attention  to  freak  things  brought  in  from  country 
holes  by  amateurs,  but — I  remember  his  wording — this 
thing,  some  ways  he  looked  at  it,  didn't  seem  bad  some 
how/5 

The  collector  paused,  passed  his  tongue  over  his  lips, 
and  said  briefly :  "  Then  he  showed  it  to  me.  It  was  the 
young  girl  and  kitten  in  there/' 

"  By  Jove!  "  cried  the  doctor. 

"  You  have  too  exciting  a  profession,  my  good  old 
dear,"  said  the  actress.  "  Some  day  you  will  die  of  a 
heart  failure." 

"  Not  after  living  through  that! " 

"What  did  you  tell  him?" 

"  I  asked  for  the  address  of  the  cousin  of  his  children's 
governess,  of  course.  When  I  had  it,  I  bought  a  ticket 
to  the  place,  and  when  I  reached  there,  I  found  myself  at 
the  end  of  all  things — an  abomination  of  desolation,  a 
parched  place  in  the  wilderness.  Do  you  know  America, 
either  of  you?" 


THE  ARTIST  269 

The  doctor  shook  his  head. 

"  I  have  toured  there,  three  times,"  said  the  actress. 

"  Did  you  ever  hear  of  a  place  called  Vermont?  " 

Madame  Orloff  looked  blank.  "  It  sounds  French,  not 
English.  Perhaps  you  do  not  pronounce  it  as  they 
do." 

"  Heaven  forbid  that  I  should  do  anything  as  '  they ' 
do!  This  place,  then,  call  it  what  you  will,  is  inhabited 
by  a  lean,  tall,  sullenly  silent  race  who  live  in  prepos 
terously  ugly  little  wooden  houses  of  the  most  naked 
cleanliness  .  .  .  God  of  my  Fathers !  the  hideousness  of 
the  huddle  of  those  huts  where  I  finally  found  the  cousin ! 
He  was  a  seller  of  letter-paper  and  cheap  chromos  and  he 
knew  nothing  of  the  picture  except  that  it  was  brought 
to  him  to  sell  by  the  countryman  who  sold  him  butter. 
So  I  found  the  address  of  the  butter-maker  and  drove 
endless  miles  over  an  execrable  road  to  his  house,  and 
encountered  at  last  a  person  who  could  tell  me  something 
of  what  I  wanted  to  know.  It  was  the  butter-maker's 
mother,  a  stolid,  middle-aged  woman,  who  looked  at  me 
out  of  the  most  uncanny  quiet  eyes  ...  all  the  people  in 
that  valley  have  extraordinary  piercing  and  quiet  eyes 
.  .  .  and  asked,  '  Is  it  about  the  picture?  For  if  it  is, 
I  don't  want  you  should  let  on  about  it  to  anybody  but 
me.  Nobody  but  the  family  knows  he  paints  'em !  " 

At  this  the  doctor  burst  out,  "  Gracious  powers !  You 
don't  mean  to  say  that  the  man  who  painted  that  picture 
is  alive  now  ...  in  1915!" 

The  actress  frowned  at  the  interruption  and  turned 
with  a  lithe  petulance  on  the  big  Briton.  "  If  you  want 
to  know,  let  him  alone !  "  she  commanded. 

"  And  soon  I  had  it  all,"  the  narrator  went  on.     "  Al- 


270  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

most  more  than  I  could  bear.  The  old  woman  could  tell 
me  what  I  wished  to  know,  she  said.  He  was  her  uncle, 
the  only  brother  of  her  mother,  and  he  had  brought  up 
her  and  her  brothers  and  sisters.  She  knew  ...  oh,  she 
knew  with  good  reason,  all  of  his  life.  All,  that  is,  but 
the  beginning.  She  had  heard  from  the  older  people  in 
the  valley  that  he  had  been  wild  in  his  youth  (he  had 
always  been,  she  told  me  gravely,  '  queer  ')  and  she  knew 
that  he  had  traveled  far  in  his  young  days,  very,  very 
far." 

"  '  To  New  York? '  I  ventured. 
; '  Oh,  no,  beyond  that.    Across  the  water.' 

'"To  Paris?' 

That  she  didn't  know.  It  was  a  foreign  country  at 
least,  and  he  had  stayed  there  two,  three  years,  until  he 
was  called  back  by  her  father's  death — his  brother-in- 
law's — to  take  care  of  his  mother,  and  his  sister  and  the 
children.  Here  her  mind  went  back  to  my  question,  and 
she  said  she  had  something  perhaps  I  could  tell  from, 
where  he  had  been.  She  kept  it  in  her  Bible.  He  had 
given  it  to  her  when  she  was  a  child  as  a  reward  the  day 
she  had  kept  her  little  brother  from  falling  in  the  fire. 
She  brought  it  out.  It  was  a  sketch,  hasty,  vigorous,  sug 
gestive,  haunting  as  the  original  itself,  of  the  Leonardo  da 
Vinci  Ste.  Anne. 

'  Yes,  I  told  her,  now  I  knew  where  he  had  been. 
And  they  had  called  him  back  from  there — here? 

'  When  my  father  died,'  she  repeated,  '  my  uncle  was 
all  my  grandmother  and  my  mother  had.  We  were  five 
little  children,  and  the  oldest  not  seven,  and  we  were  all 
very  poor.' 

"  '  How  old  was  your  uncle  then  ? '  I  asked. 


THE  ARTIST  271 

*  A  young  man — he  was  younger  than  my  mother. 
Perhaps  he  was  twenty-five.' 

"  I  looked  at  the  sketch  in  my  hand.  Twenty-five,  and 
called  back  from  Paris — here! 

"  '  When  did  he  go  back  to  Paris  ?  ' 

" '  Oh,  he  never  went  back.'  She  told  me  this  quite 
placidly,  as  she  said  everything  else.  '  He  never  went 
back  at  all.' 

"  He  had  stayed  there  the  rest  of  his  life,  and  worked 
the  little  farm  that  was  all  his  sister  had,  and  made  a  liv 
ing  for  them — not  large,  the  farm  being  poor  and  he  not 
a  first-class  farmer,  but  still  enough.  He  had  always 
been  kind  to  them — if  he  was  quite  queer  and  absent. 
She  had  heard  her  grandmother  say  that  at  first,  the  first 
ten  years,  perhaps,  he  had  had  strange,  gloomy  savage 
fits  like  a  person  possessed  that  you  read  of  in  the  Bible; 
but  she  herself  could  never  remember  him  as  anything 
but  quiet  and  smiling.  He  had  a  very  queer  smile  un 
like  anyone  else,  as  I  would  notice  for  myself  when  I 
went  to  see  him  about  the  picture.  You  could  tell  him 
by  that,  and  by  his  being  very  lame. 

1  That  brought  me  back  with  a  start.  I  rushed  at  her 
with  questions.  '  How  about  the  picture  ?  Were  there 
others?  Were  there  many?  Had  he  always  painted? 
Had  he  never  shown  them  to  anyone  ?  Was  he  painting 
now? 

"  She  could  not  tell  me  much.  It  had  been  a  detail 
of  their  common  life  she  had  but  absently  remarked,  as 
though  she  had  lived  with  a  man  who  collected  snail- 
shells,  or  studied  the  post-marks  on  letters.  She  '  had 
never  noticed  ' — that  was  the  answer  to  most  of  my  ques 
tions.  No,  she  did  not  think  there  were  very  many  now, 


272  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

though  he  must  have  painted  'most  a  million.  He  was 
always  at  it,  every  minute  he  could  spare  from  farming. 
But  they  had  been  so  poor  he  had  not  felt  he  could  af 
ford  many  canvases.  The  paints  cost  a  good  deal  too. 
So  he  painted  them  over  and  over,  first  one  thing  and  then 
another,  as  he  happened  to  fancy.  He  painted  in  the 
horse-barn.  '  Had  a  place  rigged  up/  in  her  phrase,  in 
one  corner  of  the  room  where  the  hay  was  stored,  and  had 
cut  a  big  window  in  the  roof  that  was  apt  to  let  in  water 
on  the  hay  if  the  rain  came  from  the  north. 

"  '  What  did  he  paint  ?  '  '  Oh,  anything.  He  was  queer 
about  that.  He'd  paint  anything)  He  did  one  picture 
of  nothing  but  the  corner  of  the  barnyard,  with  a  big 
white  sow  and  some  little  pigs  in  the  straw,  early  in  the 
morning,  when  the  dew  was  on  everything.  He  had 
thought  quite  a  lot  of  that,  but  he  had  had  to  paint  over  it 
to  make  the  picture  of  her  little  sister  with  the  yellow 
kittie — the  one  she'd  sent  down  to  the  village  to  try  to 
sell,  the  one ' 

" '  Yes,  yes/  I  told  her,  '  the  one  I  saw.  But  did  he 
never  try  to  sell  any  himself?  Did  he  never  even  show 
them  to  anyone  ?  ' 

"  She  hesitated,  tried  to  remember,  and  said  that  once 
when  they  were  very  poor,  and  there  was  a  big  doctor's 
bill  to  pay,  he  had  sent  a  picture  down  to  New  York.  But 
it  was  sent  back.  They  had  made  a  good  deal  of  fun  of  it, 
the  people  down  there,  because  it  wasn't  finished  off 
enough.  She  thought  her  uncle's  feelings  had  been 
hurt  by  their  letter.  The  express  down  and  back  had 
cost  a  good  deal  too,  and  the  only  frame  he  had  got 
broken.  Altogether,  she  guessed  that  discouraged  him. 
Anyhow,  he'd  never  tried  again.  He  seemed  to  get  so 


THE  ARTIST  273 

after  a  while  that  he  didn't  care  whether  anybody  liked 
them  or  even  saw  them  or  not — he  just  painted  them  to 
amuse  himself,  she  guessed.  He  seemed  to  get  a  good 
deal  of  comfort  out  of  it.  It  made  his  face  very  still 
and  smiling  to  paint.  Nobody  around  there  so  much 
as  knew  he  did  it,  the  farm  was  so  far  from  neigh 
bors. 

"  Twas  a  real  lonely  place,  she  told  me,  and  she  had 
been  glad  to  marry  and  come  down  in  the  valley  to  live 
closer  to  folks.  Her  uncle  had  given  her  her  wedding  out 
fit.  He  had  done  real  well  by  them  all,  and  they  were 
grateful;  and  now  he  was  getting  feeble  and  had  trouble 
with  his  heart,  they  wanted  to  do  something  for  him. 
They  had  thought,  perhaps,  they  could  sell  some  of  his 
pictures  for  enough  to  hire  a  man  to  help  him  with  the 
farm  work.  She  had  heard  that  pictures  were  coming 
into  fashion  more  than  they  had  been,  and  she  had  bor 
rowed  that  one  of  her  little  sister  and  the  kittie,  and 
without  her  uncle's  knowing  anything  about  it,  had  sent 
it  off.  She  was  about  discouraged  waiting  for  somebody 
down  in  the  city  to  make  up  his  mind  whether  he'd  buy 
it  or  not. 

"  I  asked  her  a  thousand  other  questions  but  she  could 
answer  none  of  them.  The  only  detail  I  could  get  from 
her  being  an  account  of  her  uncle's  habit  of  '  staring ' 
for  sometimes  a  half  an  hour  at  something,  without  once 
looking  away.  She'd  seen  him  stop  that  way,  when  he'd 
be  husking  corn  maybe,  and  stare  at  a  place  where  a 
sunbeam  came  in  on  a  pile  of  corn.  It  put  him  back  quite 
considerable  in  his  work,  that  habit,  but  they  had  nothing 
to  complain  of.  He'd  done  well  by  them,  when  you  con 
sidered  they  weren't  his  own  children. 


274  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

'  Hadn't  he  ever  tried  to  break  away  ?  '  I  asked  her, 
amazed.  '  To  leave  them  ?  To  go  back  ?  ' 

"  She  told  me :  '  Oh,  no,  he  was  the  only  support  his 
mother  and  his  sister  had,  and  there  were  all  the  little 
children.  He  had  to  stay.' ' 

The  actress  broke  in  fiercely :  "  Oh,  stop !  stop !  it 
makes  me  sick  to  hear.  I  could  boil  them  in  oil,  that 
family!  Quick!  You  saw  him?  You  brought  him 
away?  You " 

"  I  saw  him,"  said  Vieyra,  "  yes,  I  saw  him." 

Madame  Orloff  leaned  toward  him,  her  eyebrows  a 
line  of  painful  attention. 

"  I  drove  that  afternoon  up  to  a  still  tinier  village  in 
the  mountains  near  where  he  lived,  and  there  I  slept  that 
night — or,  at  least,  I  lay  in  a  bed." 

"  Of  course,  you  could  not  sleep,"  broke  in  the  listen 
ing  woman;  "I  shall  not  to-night." 

:<  When  dawn  came  I  dressed  and  went  out  to  wan 
der  until  people  should  be  awake.  I  walked  far,  through 
fields,  and  then  through  a  wood  as  red  as  red-gold — like 
nothing  I  ever  saw.  It  was  in  October,  and  the  sun  was 
late  to  rise.  When  I  came  out  on  an  uplying  heath,  the 
mists  were  just  beginning  to  roll  away  from  the  valley 
below.  As  I  stood  there,  leaning  against  a  tree  in  the 
edge  of  the  wood,  some  cows  came  by,  little,  pinched, 
lean  cows  and  a  young  dog  bounding  along,  and 
then,  after  them,  slowly,  an  old  man  in  gray — very 
lame." 

The  actress  closed  her  eyes. 

"  He  did  not  see  me.  He  whistled  to  the  dog  and 
stroked  his  head,  and  then  as  the  cows  went  through  a 
gate,  he  turned  and  faced  the  rising  sun,  the  light  full 


THE  ARTIST  275 

on  his  face.  He  looked  at  the  valley  coming  into  sight 
through  the  mists.  He  was  so  close  to  me  I  could  have 
tossed  a  stone  to  him — I  shall  never  know  how  long 
he  stood  there — how  long  I  had  that  face  before 
me." 

The  narrator  was  silent.  Madame  Orloff  opened  her 
eyes  and  looked  at  him  piercingly. 

"  I  cannot  tell  you — I  cannot !  "  he  answered  her. 
"  Who  can  tell  of  life  and  death  and  a  new  birth  ?  It  was 
as  though  I  were  thinking  with  my  finger-nails,  or  the 
hair  of  my  head — a  part  of  me  I  had  never  before 
dreamed  had  feeling.  My  eyes  were  dazzled.  I  could 
have  bowed  myself  to  the  earth  like  Moses  before  the 

burning  bush.      How  can   I  tell   you ?     How  can 

I  tell  you?" 

"  He  was ?  "  breathed  the  woman. 

"  Hubert  van  Eyck  might  have  painted  God  the  Father 
with  those  eyes — that  mouth — that  face  of  patient  power 
— of  selfless,  still  beatitude. — Once  the  dog,  nestling  by 
his  side,  whimpered  and  licked  his  hand.  He  looked 
down,  he  turned  his  eyes  away  from  his  vision,  and 
looked  down  at  the  animal  and  smiled.  Jehovah !  What 
a  smile.  It  seemed  to  me  then  that  if  God  loves  humanity, 
he  can  have  no  kinder  smile  for  us.  And  then  he  looked 
back  across  the  valley — at  the  sky,  at  the  mountains,  at 
the  smoke  rising  from  the  houses  below  us — he  looked  at 
the  world — at  some  vision,  some  knowledge — what  he 
saw — what  he  saw ! 

"  I  did  not  know  when  he  went.  I  was  alone  in  that 
crimson  wood. 

"  I  went  back  to  the  village.  I  went  back  to  the  city. 
I.  would  not  speak  to  him  till  I  had  some  honor  worthy 


276  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

to  offer  him.  I  tried  to  think  what  would  mean 
most  to  him.  I  remembered  the  drawing  of  the  Ste. 
Anne.  I  remembered  his  years  in  Paris,  and  I  knew 
what  would  seem  most  honor  to  him.  I  cabled  Drouot 
of  the  Luxembourg  Gallery.  I  waited  in  New  York  till 
he  came.  I  showed  him  the  picture.  I  told  him  the  story. 
He  was  on  fire ! 

"  We  were  to  go  back  to  the  mountains  together,  to 
tell  him  that  his  picture  would  hang  in  the  Luxembourg, 
and  then  in  the  Louvre — that  in  all  probability  he  would 
be  decorated  by  the  French  government,  that  other  pic 
tures  of  his  would  live  for  all  time  in  Paris,  in  London, 
in  Brussels — a  letter  came  from  the  woman,  his  niece. 
He  was  dead." 

The  actress  fell  back  in  her  chair,  her  hands  over  her 
face. 

The  surgeon  stirred  wrath  fully.  "  Heavens  and  earth, 
Vieyra,  what  beastly,  ghastly,  brutally  tragic  horror  are 
you  telling  us,  anyhow?" 

The  old  Jew  moistened  his  lips  and  was  silent.  After 
a  moment  he  said :  "  I  should  not  have  told  you.  I  knew 
you  could  not  understand." 

Madame  Orloff  looked  up  sharply.  "  Do  you  mean — 
is  it  possible  that  you  mean  that  if  we  had  seen  him — had 
seen  that  look — we  would — that  he  had  had  all  that  an 
artist " 

The  picture-dealer  addressed  himself  to  her,  turning 
his  back  on  the  doctor.  "  I  went  back  to  the  funeral,  to 
the  mountains.  The  niece  told  me  that  before  he  died 
he  smiled  suddenly  on  them  all  and  said:  M  have  had  a 
happy  life.'  I  had  taken  a  palm  to  lay  on  his  coffin,  and 
after  I  had  looked  long  at  his  dead  face,  I  put  aside  the 


THE  ARTIST  277 

palm.  I  felt  that  if  he  had  lived  I  could  never  have 
spoken  to  him — could  never  have  told  him." 

The  old  Jew  looked  down  at  the  decorations  on  his 
breast,  and  around  at  the  picture-covered  walls.  He 
made  a  sweeping  gesture. 

"What  had  I  to  offer  him?"  he  said. 


.  ••  ' 
,.-" 

WHO  ELSE  HEARD  IT? 

A  lady  walking  through  the  square 

With  steamship  tickets  in  her  hand, 

To  spend  her  summer  in  the  Alps, 
Her  winter  in  the  Holy  Land, 

Heard  (or  else  dreamed),  as  she  passed  by 
The  Orphan  Home  across  the  way, 

A  small  and  clear  and  wondering  voice 
From  out  a  dormer  window  say, 

"  And  would  you  really  rather  climb 

Mont  Blanc  alone,  than  walk  with  me 
Out  hunting  Mayflowers  in  the  woods 
Of  Westerburn  and  Cloverlea  ? 

"  Alas !    And  would  you  rather  hear 

Cathedral  choirs  in  cities  far 
Than  one  at  bedtime,  on  your  lap, 

Say  'Twinkle,  twinkle,  little  star'?"' 

"  A  lonely  Christmas  would  you  spend 

By  Galilee  or  Jordan's  tide 
When  a  child's  stocking  you  might  fill 
And  hang  it  by  your  own  fireside  ?  " 


A  DROP  IN   THE  BUCKET 

THERE  is  no  need  to  describe  in  detail  the  heroine  of 
this  tale,  because  she  represents  a  type  familiar  to  all 
readers  of  the  conventional  New-England-village  dialect 
story.  She  was  for  a  long  time  the  sole  inhabitant  of 
Hillsboro,  who  came  up  to  the  expectations  of  our  visit 
ing  friends  from  the  city,  on  the  lookout  for  Mary  Wil- 
kins  characters.  We  always  used  to  take  such  people  di 
rectly  to  see  Cousin  Tryphena,  as  dwellers  in  an  Italian 
city  always  take  their  foreign  friends  to  see  their  one  bit 
of  ruined  city  wall  or  the  heap  of  stones  which  was  once 
an  Inquisitorial  torture  chamber,  never  to  see  the  new 
water-works  or  the  modern,  sanitary  hospital. 

On  the  way  to  the  other  end  of  the  street,  where  Cousin 
Tryphena's  tiny,  two-roomed  house  stood,  we  always  laid 
bare  the  secrets  of  her  somnolent,  respectable,  unprofitable 
life;  we  always  informed  our  visitors  that  she  lived  and 
kept  up  a  social  position  on  two  hundred  and  fifteen  dol 
lars  a  year,  and  that  she  had  never  been  further  from 
home  than  to  the  next  village.  We  always  drew  attention 
to  her  one  treasure,  the  fine  Sheraton  sideboard  that  had 
belonged  to  her  great-grandfather,  old  Priest  Perkins; 
and,  when  we  walked  away  from  the  orderly  and  empty 
house,  we. were  sure  that  our  friends  from  the  city  would 
always  exclaim  with  great  insight  into  character,  "  What 
a  charmingly  picturesque  life!  Isn't  she  perfectly  de 
licious!" 

279 


28o  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

Next  door  to  Cousin  Tryphena's  minute,  snow-wh'ite 
house  is  a  forlorn  old  building,  one  of  the  few  places 
for  rent  in  our  village,  where  nearly  everyone  owns  his 
own  shelter.  It  stood  desolately  idle  for  some  time, 
tumbling  to  pieces  almost  visibly,  until,  one  day,  two 
years  ago,  a  burly,  white-bearded  tramp  stopped  in  front 
of  it,  laid  down  his  stick  and  bundle,  and  went  to  inquire 
at  the  neighbor's  if  the  place  were  for  rent,  then  moved 
in  with  his  stick  and  bundle  and  sent  away  for  the  rest 
of  his  belongings,  that  is  to  say,  an  outfit  for  cobbling 
shoes.  He  cut  a  big  wooden  boot  out  of  the  side  of  an 
empty  box,  painted  it  black  with  axle-grease  and  soot, 
hung  it  up  over  the  door,  and  announced  himself  as  ready 
to  do  all  the  cobbling  and  harness-repairing  he  could  get 
.  .  .  and  a  fine  workman  he  showed  himself  to  be. 

We  were  all  rather  glad  to  have  this  odd  new  member 
of  our  community  settle  down  among  us  ...  all,  that  is, 
except  Cousin  Tryphena,  who  was  sure,  for  months  after 
ward,  that  he  would  cut  her  throat  some  night  and  steal 
away  her  Sheraton  sideboard.  It  was  an  open  secret 
that  Putnam,  the  antique-furniture  dealer  in  Troy,  had 
offered  her  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  for  it.  The 
other  women  of  the  village,  however,  not  living  alone  in 
such  dangerous  proximity  to  the  formidable  stranger, 
felt  reassured  by  his  long,  white  beard,  and  by  his  great 
liking  for  little  children. 

Although,  from  his  name,  as  from  his  strong  accent, 
it  was  evident  that  old  Jombatiste  belonged,  by  birth,  to 
our  French-Canadian  colony,  he  never  associated  himself 
with  that  easy-going,  devoutly  Catholic,  law-abiding,  and 
rather  unlettered  group  of  our  citizens.  He  allied  himself 
with  quite  another  class,  making  no  secret  of  the  fact  that 


A  DROP  IN  THE  BUCKET  281 

he  was  an  out-and-out  Socialist,  Anti-clerical,  Syndicalist, 
Anarchist,  Nihilist.  .  .  .  We  in  Hillsboro  are  not  acute 
in  distinguishing  between  the  different  shades  of  radical 
ism,  and  never  have  been  able  exactly  to  place  him,  ex 
cept  that,  beside  his  smashing,  loudly-voiced  theories, 
young  Arthur  Robbins'  Progressivism  sounds  like  old 
Martin  Pelham's  continued  jubilation  over  the  Hayes 
campaign. 

The  central  article  of  Jombatiste's  passionately  held 
creed  seemed  to  be  that  everything  was  exactly  wrong, 
and  that,  while  the  Socialist  party  was  not  nearly  sweep 
ing  enough  in  its  ideas,  it  was,  as  yet,  the  best  means  for 
accomplishing  the  inevitable,  righteous  overturning  of 
society.  Accordingly,  he  worked  incessantly,  not  only  at 
his  cobbling,  but  at  any  odd  job  he  could  find  to  do,  lived 
the  life  of  an  anchorite,  went  in  rags,  ate  mainly  crackers 
and  milk,  and  sent  every  penny  he  could  save  to  the 
Socialist  Headquarters.  We  knew  about  this  not  only 
through  his  own  trumpeting  of  the  programme  of  his  life, 
but  because  Phil  Latimer,  the  postmaster,  is  cousin  to  us 
all  and  often  told  us  about  the  money-orders,  so  large 
that  they  must  have  represented  almost  all  the  earnings 
of  the  fanatical  old  shoemaker. 

And  yet  he  was  never  willing  to  join  in  any  of  our 
charitable  enterprises,  although  his  ardent  old  heart  was 
evidently  as  tender  as  it  was  hot.  Nothing  threw  him 
into  such  bellowing  fury  as  cruelty.  He  became  the 
terror  of  all  our  boys  who  trapped  rabbits,  and,  indeed, 
by  the  sole  influence  of  his  whirlwind  descents  upon  them, 
and  his  highly  illegal  destruction  of  their  traps,  he  prac 
tically  made  that  boyish  pastime  a  thing  of  the  past  in 
Hillsboro.  Somehow,  though  the  boys  talked  mightily 


282  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

about  how  they'd  have  the  law  of  dirty,  hot-tempered  old 
Jombatiste,  nobody  cared  really  to  face  him.  He  had  on 
tap  a  stream  of  red-hot  vituperation  astonishingly  varied 
for  a  man  of  his  evident  lack  of  early  education.  Perhaps 
it  came  from  his  incessant  reading  and  absorption  of 
Socialist  and  incendiary  literature. 

He  took  two  Socialist  newspapers,  and  nobody  knows 
how  many  queer  little  inflammatory  magazines  from 
which  he  read  aloud  selections  to  anyone  who  did  not  run 
away. 

Naturally  enough,  from  his  point  of  view,  he  began 
with  his  neighbor,  fastidious  Cousin  Tryphena. 

What  Cousin  Tryphena  did  not  know  about  the  way 
the  world  outside  of  Hillsboro  was  run  would  have  made 
a  complete  treatise  on  modern  civilization.  She  never 
took  a  newspaper,  only  borrowing,  once  in  a  while,  the 
local  sheet  to  read  the  news  items  from  Greenford,  where 
she  had  some  distant  cousins;  and,  though  she  occasion 
ally  looked  at  one  of  the  illustrated  magazines,  it  was  only 
at  the  pictures. 

It  is  therefore  plain  that  old  Jombatiste  could  not  have 
found  a  worse  listener  for  his  bellowed  statements  that 
ninety  per  cent,  of  the  money  of  this  country  was  in  the 
hands  of  two  per  cent,  of  the  population;  that  the  fran 
chise  was  a  farce  because  the  government  was  con 
trolled  by  a  Wall  Street  clique;  and  that  any  man  who 
could  not  earn  a  good  living  for  his  family  had  a  moral 
right  to  shoot  a  millionaire.  For  the  most  part,  Cousin 
Tryphena  counted  her  tatting  stitches  and  paid  not  the 
least  attention  to  her  malcontent  neighbor.  When  she 
did  listen,  she  did  not  believe  a  word  he  said.  She  had 
lived  in  Hillsboro  for  fifty-five  years  and  she  knew  what 


A  DROP  IN  THE  BUCKET  283 

made  people  poor.  It  was  shiftlessness.  There  was  al 
ways  plenty  of  work  to  be  had  at  the  brush-back  factory 
for  any  man  who  had  the  sense  and  backbone  to  keep  at 
it.  If  they  would  stop  work  in  deer-week  to  go  hunting, 
or  go  on  a  spree  Town-meeting  day,  or  run  away  to  fish, 
she'd  like  to  know  what  business  they  had  blaming  mil 
lionaires  because  they  lost  their  jobs.  She  did  not  ex 
pound  her  opinions  of  these  points  to  Jombatiste  because, 
in  the  first  place,  she  despised  him  for  a  dirty  Canuck, 
and,  secondly,  because  opinions  seemed  shadowy  and  un 
substantial  things  to  her.  The  important  matters  were 
to  make  your  starch  clear  and  not  to  be  late  to  church. 

It  is  proverbial  that  people  who  are  mostly  silent  often 
keep  for  some  time  a  reputation  for  more  wisdom  than  is 
theirs.  Cousin  Tryphena  unconsciously  profited  in  the 
estimation  of  her  neighbor  by  this  fact  of  psychology. 
Old  Jombatiste  had  thundered  his  per  cents,  of  the  dis 
tribution  of  capital  for  many  months  before  he  discov 
ered  that  he  was  on  the  wrong  track. 

Then,  one  winter  day,  as  Cousin  Tryphena  was  hang 
ing  out  her  washing,  he  ran  over  to  her,  waving  his  fa 
vorite  magazine.  He  read  her  a  paragraph  from  it,  strik 
ing  the  paper  occasionally  for  emphasis  with  his  horny, 
blackened,  shoemaker's  hand,  and  following  her  as  she 
moved  along  the  clothes-lines — 

"  And  it  is  thus  definitely  proved,"  he  shouted  in  con 
clusion,  "  that  Senator  Burlingame  was  in  the  pay  of  J. 
D.  Darby,  when  he  held  up  the  Rouse  Workingman's  Bill 
in  the  Senate  Committee.  ..."  He  stopped  and  glared 
triumphantly  at  his  neighbor.  A  rare  impulse  of  per 
versity  rose  in  Cousin  Tryphena's  unawakened  heart. 
She  took  a  clothes-pin  out  of  her  mouth  and  asked  with 


284  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

some  exasperation,  "  Well,  what  of  it !  "  a  comment  on 
his  information  which  sent  the  old  man  reeling  back  as 
though  she  had  struck  him. 

In  the  conversation  which  followed,  old  Jombatiste,  ex 
ploring  at  last  Cousin  Tryphena's  mind,  leaned  giddily 
over  the  abyss  of  her  ignorance  of  political  economy  and 
sociology,  dropping  one  exploring  plummet  after  another 
into  its  depths,  only  to  find  them  fathomless.  He  went 
shakily  back  to  his  own  house,  silenced  for  once. 

But,  although  for  the  first  time  he  neglected  work  to  do 
it,  he  returned  to  the  attack  the  next  day  with  a  new 
weapon.  He  made  no  more  remarks  about  industrial 
slavery,  nor  did  he  begin,  as  was  his  wont,  with  the 
solemnly  enunciated  axiom,  "  Wealth  comes  from  labor 
alone !  "  He  laid  down,  on  the  Sheraton  sideboard,  an 
armful  of  his  little  magazines,  and  settled  himself  in  a 
chair,  observing  with  a  new  comprehension  how  instinct 
ively  Cousin  Tryphena  reached  for  her  tatting  as  he  be 
gan  to  read  aloud.  He  read  the  story  of  a  man  who  was 
burned  to  death  in  molten  steel  because  his  employers  did 
not  install  a  rather  expensive  safety  device,  and  who  left 
a  young  widow  and  three  children.  These  tried  to  earn 
their  livings  by  making  artificial  flowers.  They  could  earn, 
all  of  them  working  together,  three  cents  an  hour.  When 
the  last  dollar  of  the  dead  father's  savings  was  used  up, 
and  there  was  talk  of  separating  the  family  so  that  the 
children  could  be  put  in  an  asylum,  the  mother  drowned 
the  three  little  ones  and  herself  after  them.  Cousin  Try 
phena  dropped  her  tatting,  her  country-bred  mind  reeling. 
"  Didn't  she  have  any  folks  to  help  her  out?  " 

Jombatiste  explained  that  she  came  from  East  Poland, 
so  that  her  folks,  if  indeed  she  had  any,  were  too  far 


A  DROP  IN  THE  BUCKET  285" 

away  to  be  of  use.  He  struck  one  fist  inside  his  palm 
with  a  fierce  gesture,  such  as  he  used  when  he  caught 
a  boy  trapping,  and  cried,  "...  and  that  in  a  country 
that  produces  three  times  the  food  it  consumes."  For 
the  first  time,  a  statistical  statement  awoke  an  echo  in 
Cousin  Tryphena's  atrophied  brain. 

Old  Jombatiste  read  on,  this  time  about  a  girl  of  seven 
teen,  left  by  her  parents'  death  in  charge  of  a  small 
brother.  She  had  been  paid  twenty  cents  for  making 
crocheted  lace  which  sold  for  a  dollar  and  a  half.  By 
working  twelve  hours  a  day,  she  had  been  able  to  make 
forty-seven  cents.  Seeing  her  little  brother  grow  pale 
from  lack  of  food,  she  had,  in  desperation,  taken  the  first, 
the  awfully  decisive  first  step  downward,  and  had  almost 
at  once  thereafter  vanished,  drawn  down  by  the  mael 
strom  of  vice.  The  little  brother,  wild  with  grief  over 
his  sister's  disappearance,  had  been  taken  to  an  orphan 
asylum  where  he  had  since  twice  tried  to  commit  suicide. 

Cousin  Tryphena  sat  rigid,  her  tatting  fallen  to  the 
floor,  her  breath  coming  with  difficulty.  It  is  impossible 
for  the  average  modern  mind,  calloused  by  promiscuous 
reading,  to  conceive  the  effect  upon  her  primitive  organ 
ism  of  this  attack  from  the  printed  page.  She  not  only 
did  not  dream  that  these  stories  might  not  be  true,  they 
seemed  as  real  to  her  as  though  she  had  seen  the  people. 
There  was  not  a  particle  of  blood  in  her  haggard  face. 

Jombatiste  read  on  ...  the  story  of  a  decent,  am 
bitious  man,  employed  in  a  sweatshop  tailoring  establish 
ment,  who  contracted  tuberculosis  from  the  foul  air,  and 
who  dragged  down  with  him,  in  his  agonizing  descent  to 
the  very  depths  of  misery,  a  wife  and  two  children.  He 
was  now  dead,  and  his  wife  was  living  in  a  corner  of  a 


286  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

moldy,  damp  basement,  a  pile  of  rags  the  only  bed  for  her 
and  her  children,  their  only  heat  what  fire  the  mother 
could  make  out  of  paper  and  rubbish  picked  up  on  the 
streets. 

Cousin  Tryphena's  horrified  eyes  fell  on  her  well- 
blacked  stove,  sending  out  the  aromatic  breath  of  burning 
white-birch  sticks.  She  recoiled  from  it  with  a  shudder. 

Jombatiste  read  on,  the  story  of  the  woman  who,  when 
her  three  sons  died  in  an  accident  due  to  negligence 
on  their  employer's  part  ...  he  read  no  more  that  day, 
for  Cousin  Tryphena  put  her  gray  head  down  on  the 
center-table  and  wept  as  she  never  had  done  in  her  life. 
Jombatiste  rose  softly  and  tiptoed  out  of  the  room. 

The  tap-tap-tap  of  his  hammer  rang  loud  and  fast 
the  rest  of  that  day.  He  was  exulting  over  having 
aroused  another  bourgeois  from  the  sleep  of  greasy  com 
placency.  He  had  made  a  convert.  To  his  dire  and 
utter  pennilessness,  Cousin  Tryphena's  tiny  income 
seemed  a  fortune.  He  had  a  happy  dream  of  persuading 
her  to  join  him  in  his  weekly  contributions  to  the  sacred 
funds !  As  he  stood  at  midnight,  in  the  open  door,  for 
the  long  draught  of  fresh  air  he  always  took  before  turn 
ing  in  on  his  pile  of  hay,  he  heard  in  the  wood  on  the  hill 
back  of  the  house  the  shrill  shriek  of  a  trapped  rabbit. 
He  plowed  furiously  out  through  the  deep  snow  to  find 
it,  gave  the  tortured  animal  a  merciful  death,  carried  the 
trap  back  to  the  river  and  threw  it  in  with  a  furious 
splash.  He  strode  home  under  the  frosty  stars,  his  dirty 
shirt  open  over  his  corded,  old  neck,  his  burning  heart 
almost  content.  He  had  done  a  good  day's  work. 

Early  the  next  morning,  his  neighbor  came  to  his  door, 
very  white,  very  hollow-eyed,  evidently  with  a  sleepless 


A  DROP  IN  THE  BUCKET  287 

night  back  of  her,  and  asked  him  for  the  papers  he  had 
read  from.  Jombatiste  gave  them  to  her  in  a  tactful 
silence.  She  took  them  in  one  shaking  hand,  drawing  her 
shawl  around  her  wrinkled  face  with  the  other,  and  went 
back  through  the  snow  to  her  own  house. 

By  noon  that  day,  everyone  in  the  village  was  thrilling 
with  wild  surmise.  Cousin  Tryphena  had  gone  over  to 
Graham  and  Sanders',  asked  to  use  their  long-distance 
telephone  and  had  telephoned  to  Putnam  to  come  and  get 
her  sideboard.  After  this  strange  act,  she  had  passed  Al 
bert  Graham,  then  by  chance  alone  in  the  store,  with  so 
wild  a  mien  that  he  had  not  ventured  to  make  any  in 
quiries.  But  he  took  pains  to  mention  the  matter  to  every 
one  who  happened  to  come  in,  that  morning;  and,  by 
dinner-time,  every  family  in  Hillsboro  was  discussing 
over  its  pie  the  possibility  that  the  well-known  queer 
streak,  which  had  sent  several  of  Cousin  Tryphena's  an 
cestors  to  the  asylum,  was  suddenly  making  its  appear 
ance  in  her. 

I  was  detained,  that  afternoon,  and  did  not  reach  her 
house  until  nearly  four;  and  I  was  almost  the  last  to 
arrive.  I  found  Cousin  Tryphena  very  silent,  her  usually 
pale  face  very  red,  the  center  of  a  group  of  neighbors 
who  all  at  once  began  to  tell  me  what  had  happened.  I 
could  make  nothing  out  of  their  incoherent  explanations. 
.  .  .  "  Trypheny  was  crazy  .  .  .  she'd  ought. to  have 
a  guardeen  .  .  .  that  Canuck  shoemaker  had  addled  her 
brains  .  .  .  there'd  ought  to  be  a  law  against  that  kind 
of  newspaper.  .  .  .  Trypheny  was  goin'  like  her  great- 
aunt,  Lucilly,  that  died  in  the  asylum.  ..."  I  appealed 
directly  to  Cousin  Tryphena  for  information  as  to  what 
the  trouble  was. 


288  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

"  There  ain't  any  trouble  's  I  know  of,"  she  answered 
in  a  shaking  voice.  "  I've  just  heard  of  a  widow-woman, 
down  in  the  city,  who's  bringin'  up  her  two  children  in  the 
corner  of  a  basement  where  the  green  mold  stands  out  on 
the  wall,  and  I'm  goin'  down  to  fetch  her  an'  the  children 
up  here  to  live  with  me  ...  them  an'  a  little  orphan  boy 
as  don't  like  the  'sylum  where  they've  put  him ' 

Somebody  broke  in  on  her  to  cry,  "  Why,  Trypheny, 
you  simple  old  critter,  that's  four  people!  Where  you 
goin'  to  put  'em  in  this  little  tucked-up  place  ?  " 

Cousin  Tryphena  answered  doggedly  and  pointedly, 
"  Your  own  grandmother,  Rebecca  Mason,  brought  up  a 
family  of  seven  in  a  house  no  bigger  than  this,  and  no 
cellar." 

"  But  how,  ..."  another  voice  exclaimed,  "  air  you 
goin'  to  get  enough  for  'em  to  eat?  You  ain't  got  but 
barely  enough  for  yourself !  " 

Cousin  Tryphena  paled  a  little,  "  I'm  a  good  sewer,  I 
could  make  money  sewing  .  .  .  and  I  could  do  washings 
for  city-folks,  summer-times.  ..."  Her  set  mouth  told 
what  a  price  she  paid  for  this  voluntary  abandonment 
of 'the  social  standing  that  had  been  hers  by  virtue  of  her 
idleness.  She  went  on  with  sudden  spirit,  "  You  all  act  as 
though  I  was  doin'  it  to  spite  you  and  to  amuse  myself ! 
I  don't  want  to !  When  I  think  of  my  things  I've  kept  so 
nice  always,  I'm  wild  .  .  .  but  how  can  I  help  it,  now  I 
know  about  'em !  I  didn't  sleep  a  wink  last  night.  I'll  go 
clean  crazy  if  I  don't  do  something!  I  saw  those  three 
children  strugglin'  in  the  water  and  their  mother  a-holdin' 

on  'em  down,  and  then  jumpin'  in  herself Why,  I 

give  enough  milk  to  the  cat  to  keep  a  baby  .  .  .  what 
else  can  I  do  ?  " 


A  DROP  IN  THE  BUCKET  289 

I  was  touched,  as  I  think  we  all  were,  by  her  helpless 
simplicity  and  ignorance,  and  by  her  defenselessness 
against  this  first  vision  of  life,  the  vision  which  had  been 
spared  her  so  long,  only  to  burst  upon  her  like  a  forest- 
fire.  I  had  an  odd  fancy  that  she  had  just  awakened 
after  a  sleep  of  half  a  century. 

"  Dear  Cousin  Tryphena,"  I  said  as  gently  as  I  could, 
"  you  haven't  had  a  very  wide  experience  of  modern  in 
dustrial  or  city  conditions  and  there  are  some  phases  of 
this  matter  which  you  don't  take  into  consideration." 
Then  I  brought  out  the  old,  wordy,  eminently  reasonable 
arguments  we  all  use  to  stifle  the  thrust  of  self -question 
ing:  I  told  her  that  it  was  very  likely  that  the  editor  of 
that  newspaper  had  invented,  or  at  least  greatly  exag 
gerated  those  stories,  and  that  she  would  find  on  investiga 
tion  that  no  such  family  existed. 

"  I  don't  see  how  that  lets  me  out  of  lookin'  for  them/' 
said  Cousin  Tryphena. 

"  Well,  at  least,"  I  urged,  "  don't  be  in  such  a  hurry 
about  it.  Take  time  to  think  it  over !  Wait  till— 

"  Wait !  "  cried  Cousin  Tryphena.  "  Why,  another  one 
may  be  jumpin'  in  the  river  this  minute !  If  I'd  ha'  had 
the  money,  I'd  ha'  gone  on  the  noon  train !  " 

At  this  point,  the  man  from  Putnam's  came  with  a 
team  from  our  livery  to  carry  away  the  Sheraton  side 
board.  Cousin  Tryphena  bore  herself  like  a  martyr  at 
the  stake,  watching,  with  dry  eyes,  the  departure  of  her 
one  certificate  to  dear  gentility  and  receiving  with  proud 
indifference  the  crisp  bills  of  a  denomination  most  of  us 
had  never  seen  before. 

"  You  won't  need  all  that  just  to  go  down  to  the  city," 
I  remonstrated. 


290  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

She  stopped  watching  the  men  load  her  shining  old 
treasure  into  the  wagon  and  turned  her  anguished  eyes 
to  me.  "  They'll  likely  be  needing  clothes  and  things." 

I  gave  up.    She  had  indeed  thought  it  all  out. 

It  was  time  for  us  to  go  home  to  prepare  our  several 
suppers  and  we  went  our  different  ways,  shaking  our 
heads  over  Tryphena's  queerness.  I  stopped  a  moment 
before  the  cobbler's  open  door,  watched  him  briskly  sew 
ing  a  broken  halter  and  telling  a  folk-tale  to  some  chil 
dren  by  his  knee.  When  he  finished,  I  said  with  some 
acerbity,  "  Well,  Jombatiste,  I  hope  you're  satisfied  with 
what  you've  done  to  poor  old  Miss  Tryphena  .  .  .  spoil 
ing  the  rest  of  her  life  for  her!" 

"  Such  a  life,  Madame,"  said  Jombatiste  dryly,  "  ought 
to  be  spoiled,  the  sooner  the  better." 

"  She's  going  to  start  for  the  city  to-morrow,"  I  said, 
supposing  of  course  that  he  had  heard  the  news. 

Jombatiste  looked  up  very  quickly.  "  For  what  goes 
she  to  the  city  ?  " 

'  Why  .  .  .  she's  gone  daft  over  those  bogie-stories 
of  yours  .  .  .  she's  looked  the  list  over  and  picked  out 
the  survivors,  the  widow  of  the  man  who  died  of  tuber 
culosis,  and  so  on,  and  she's  going  to  bring  them  back 
here  to  share  her  luxurious  life." 

Jombatiste  bounded  into  the  air  as  if  a  bomb  had  ex 
ploded  under  him,  scattering  his  tools  and  the  children, 
rushing  past  me  out  of  the  house  and  toward  Cousin 
Tryphena's.  .  .  .  As  he  ran,  he  did  what  I  have  never 
seen  anyone  do,  out  of  a  book;  he  tore  at  his  bushy  hair 
and  scattered  handfuls  in  the  air.  It  seemed  to  me  that 
some  sudden  madness  had  struck  our  dull  little  village, 
and  I  hastened  after  him  to  protect  Cousin  Tryphena. 


A  DROP  IN  THE  BUCKET  29* 

She  opened  the  door  in  answer  to  his  battering  knocks, 
frowned,  and  began  to  say  something  to  him,  but  was 
fairly  swept  off  her  feet  by  the  torrent  of  his  reproaches. 
.  .  .  "  How  dare  you  take  the  information  I  give  you 
and  use  it  to  betray  your  fellow-man !  How  do  you  dare 
stand  there,  so  mealy-mouthed,  and  face  me,  when  you 
are  planning  a  cowardly  attack  on  the  liberty  of  your 
country!  You  call  yourself  a  nurse  .  .  .  what  would 
you  think  of  a  mother  who  hid  an  ulcer  in  her  child's 
side  from  the  doctor  because  it  did  not  look  pretty! 
What  else  are  you  planning  to  do?  What  would  you 
think  of  a  nurse  who  put  paint  and  powder  on  her  pa 
tient's  face,  to  cover  up  a  filthy  skin  disease?  What 
else  are  you  planning  to  do  .  .  .  you  with  your  plan  to  put 
court-plaster  over  one  pustule  in  ten  million  and  thinking 
you  are  helping  cure  the  patient !  You  are  planning  sim 
ply  to  please  yourself,  you  cowardly  .  .  .  and  you  are 
an  idiot  too  .  .  . "  he  beat  his  hands  on  the  door- jambs, 
...  if  you  had  the  money  of  forty  millionaires, 
you  couldn't  do  anything  in  that  way  .  .  .  how  many 
people  are  you  thinking  to  help  .  .  .  two,  three  .  .  . 
maybe  four!  But  there  are  hundreds  of  others  .  .  . 
why,  I  could  read  you  a  thousand  stories  of 
worse " 

Cousin  Tryphena's  limit  had  been  reached.  She  ad 
vanced  upon  the  intruder  with  a  face  as  excited  as  his 
own.  .  .  .  "Jombatiste  Ramotte,  if  you  ever  dare  to 
read  me  another  such  story,  I'll  go  right  out  and  jump  in 
the  Necronsett  River !  " 

The  mania  which  had  haunted  earlier  generations  of 
her  family  looked  out  luridly  from  her  eyes. 

I  felt  the  goose-flesh  stand  out  on  my  arms,  and  even 


292  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

Jombatiste's  hot  blood  was  cooled.     He  stood  silent  an 
instant. 

Cousin  Tryphena  slammed  the  door  in  his  face. 

He  turned  to  me  with  a  bewilderment  almost  pathetic, 
so  tremendous  was  it.  ...  "  Did  you  hear  that  .   . 
vvhat  sort  of  logic  do  you  call " 

"  Jombatiste,"  I  counseled  him,  "  if  you  take  my  advice, 
you'll  leave  Miss  Tryphena  alone  after  this." 

Cousin  Tryphena  started  off  on  her  crack-brained  ex 
pedition,  the  very  next  morning,  on  the  six-thirty  train. 
I  happened  to  be  looking  out  sleepily  and  saw  her  trudging 
wearily  past  our  house  in  the  bleak  gray  of  our  mountain 
dawn,  the  inadequate  little,  yellow  flame  of  her  old- 
fashioned  lantern  like  a  glowworm  at  her  side.  It  seemed 
somehow  symbolical  of  something,  I  did  not  know  what. 

It  was  a  full  week  before  we  heard  from  her,  and  we 
had  begun  really  to  fear  that  we  would  never  see  her 
again,  thinking  that  perhaps,  while  she  was  among  stran 
gers,  her  unsettled  mind  might  have  taken  some  new 
fancy  which  would  be  her  destruction. 

That  week  Jombatiste  shut  the  door  to  his  house.  The 
children  reported  that  he  would  not  even  let  them  in,  and 
that  they  could  see  him  through  the  window  stitching 
away  in  ominous  silence,  muttering  to  himself. 

Eight  days  after  Cousin  Tryphena  had  gone  away,  I 
had  a  telegram  from  her,  which  read,  "  Build  fires  in 
both  my  stoves  to-morrow  afternoon." 

The  dark  comes  early  in  the  mountains,  and  so,  al 
though  I  dare  say  there  was  not  a  house  in  the  village 
without  a  face  at  the  pane  after  the  late  evening  train 
came  up,  none  of  us  saw  anything  but  our  usual  impene 
trable  December  darkness.  That,  too,  seemed,  to  my  per- 


A  DROP  IN  THE  BUCKET  293 

haps  overwrought  consciousness  of  the  problem,  highly 
suggestive  of  the  usual  course  of  our  lives.  At  least,  I 
told  myself,  Cousin  Tryphena  had  taken  her  absurd  little 
lantern  and  gone  forth. 

The  next  morning,  soon  after  breakfast,  I  set  off  for 
the  other  end  of  the  street.  Cousin  Tryphena  saw  me 
coming  and  opened  the  door.  She  did  not  smile,  and  she 
was  still  very  pale,  but  I  saw  that  she  had  regained  her 
self-control.  "  Come  right  in,"  she  said,  in  rather  a  tense 
voice,  and,  as  I  entered  she  added,  in  our  rustic  phrase  for 
introduction,  "  Make  you  'quainted  with  my  friend,  Mrs. 
Lindstrom.  She's  come  up  from  the  city  to  stay  with 
me.  And  this  is  her  little  boy,  Sigurd,  and  this  is  the 
baby." 

Blinking  somewhat,  I  shook  hands  with  a  small,  stoop- 
shouldered  woman,  in  a  new,  ready-made  dress,  with 
abundant  yellow  hair  drawn  back  from  the  thinnest, 
palest,  saddest  little  face  I  had  ever  seen.  She  was  hold 
ing  an  immaculately  clean  baby,  asleep,  its  long  golden 
lashes  lying  on  cheeks  as  white  and  sunken  as  her  own. 
A  sturdily  built  boy  of  about  six  scrambled  up  from  where 
he  lay  on  the  floor,  playing  with  the  cat,  and  gave  me  a 
hand  shyly,  hanging  down  his  head.  His  mother  had 
glanced  up  at  me  with  a  quick,  shrinking  look  of  fright, 
the  tears  starting  to  her  eyes. 

Cousin  Tryphena  was  evidently  afraid  that  I  would  not 
ake  her  cue  and  sound  the  right  note,  for  she  went  on 
hastily,  "  Mrs.  Lindstrom  has  been  real  sick  and  kind  o' 
worried  over  the  baby,  so's  she's  some  nervous.  I  tell 
her  Hillsboro  air  is  thought  very  good  for  people's  nerves. 
Lots  of  city  folks  come  here  in  summer  time,  just  for 
that.  Don't  you  think  Sigurd  is  a  real  big  boy  for  only' 


294  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

six  and  a  half  ?  He  knows  his  letters  too !  He's  goin'  to 
school  as  soon  as  we  get  settled  down.  I  want  you  should 
bring  over  those  alphabet  blocks  that  your  Peggy  doesn't 
use  any  more " 

The  other  woman  was  openly  crying  now,  clinging  to 
her  benefactress'  hand  and  holding  it  against  her  cheek 
as  she  sobbed. 

My  heroic  old  cousin  patted  her  hair  awkwardly,  but 
kept  on  talking  in  her  matter-of-fact  manner,  looking 
at  me  sternly  as  though  defying  me  to  show,  by  look  or 
word,  any  consciousness  of  anything  unusual  in  the  situa 
tion  ;  and  we  fell  at  once,  she  and  I,  into  a  commonplace 
conversation  about  the  incidents  of  the  trip  up. 

When  I  came  away,  half  an  hour  later,  Cousin  Try- 
phena  slipped  a  shawl  over  her  head  and  came  down  the 
walk  with  me  to  the  gate.  I  was  much  affected  by  what 
seemed  to  me  the  dramatically  fitting  outcome  of  my  old 
kinswoman's  Quixotism.  I  saw  Cousin  Tryphena  pic 
turesquely  as  the  Happy  Fool  of  old  folk-lore,  the  char 
acter  who,  through  his  very  lack  of  worldly  wisdom, 
attains  without  effort  all  that  self-seeking  folks  try  for  in 
vain.  The  happy  ending  of  her  adventure  filled  me  with 
a  cheerful  wonder  at  the  ways  of  Providence,  which  I 
tried  to  pass  on  to  her  in  the  exclamation,  "  Why,  Cousin 
Tryphena,  it's  like  a  story-book !  You're  going  to  enjoy 
having  those  people.  The  woman  is  as  nice  as  she  can 
be,  and  that's  the  brightest  little  boy !  He's  as  smart  as  a 
whip!" 

I  was  aware  that  the  oddness  of  Cousin  Tryphena's 
manner  still  persisted  even  now  that  we  were  alone.  She 
sighed  heavily  and  said,  "  I  don't  sleep  much  better  nights 
now  I've  done  it !  "  Then  facing  me,  "  I  hadn't  ought  to 


A  DROP  IN  THE  BUCKET  295 

have  brought  them  up  here !  I  just  did  it  to  please  my 
self!  Once  I  saw  'em  ...  I  wanted  'em!" 

This  seemed  to  me  the  wildest  possible  perversion  of 
the  Puritan  instinct  for  self-condemnation  and,  half- 
vexed,  I  attempted  some  expostulation. 

She  stopped  me  with  a  look  and  gesture  Dante  might 
have  had,  "  You  ain't  seen  what  I've  seen." 

I  was  half-frightened  by  her  expression  but  tried  to 
speak  coolly.  "  Why,  was  it  as  bad  as  that  paper  said?  " 
I  asked. 

She  laid  her  hand  on  my  arm,  "  Child,  it  was  nothing 
like  what  the  paper  said  ...  it  was  so  much  worse !  " 

"  Oh  .   .  ."I  commented  inadequately. 

"  I  was  five  days  looking  for  her  .  .  .  they'd  moved 
from  the  address  the  paper  give.  And,  in  those  five  days, 
I  saw  so  many  others  .  .  .  so  many  others  ..."  her  face 
twitched.  She  put  one  lean  old  hand  before  her  eyes. 
Then,  quite  unexpectedly,  she  cast  out  at  me  an  exclama 
tion  which  made  my  notion  of  the  pretty  picturesqueness 
of  her  adventure  seem  cheap  and  trivial  and  superficial. 
"  Jombatiste  is  right !  "  she  cried  to  me  with  a  bitter 
fierceness :  "  Everything  is  wrong !  Everything  is  wrong ! 
If  I  can  do  anything,  I'd  ought  to  do  it  to  help  them  as 
want  to  smash  everything  up  and  start  over !  What  good 
does  it  do  for  me  to  bring  up  here  just  these  three  out  of 
all  I  saw  ..."  Her  voice  broke  into  pitiful,  self- 
excusing  quavers,  "  but  when  I  saw  them  ...  the  baby 
was  so  sick  .  .  .  and  little  Sigurd  is  so  cunning  ...  he 
took  to  me  right  away,  came  to  me  the  first  thing  .  .  . 
this  morning  he  wouldn't  pick  up  his  new  rubbers  off  the 
floor  for  his  mother,  but,  when  I  asked  him,  he  did,  right 
off  ...  you  ought  to  have  seen  what  he  had  on  ... 


296  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

such  rags  .  .  .  such  dirt  .  .  .  and  'twan't  her  fault 
either!  She's  .  .  .  why  she's  like  anybody  .  .  .  like  a 
person's  cousin  they  never  happened  to  see  before  .  .  . 
why,  they  were  all  folks!"  she  cried  out,  her  tired  old 
mind  wandering  fitfully  from  one  thing  to  another. 

"You  didn't  find  the  little  boy  in  the  asylum?"  I 
asked. 

"  He  was  dead  before  I  got  there,"  she  answered. 

"  Oh  .  .  .  !  "  I  said  again,  shocked,  and  then  tenta 
tively,  "  Had  he  .  .  .  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know  whether  he  had  or  not,"  said  Cousin 
Tryphena,  "  I  didn't  ask.  I  didn't  want  to  know.  I 
know  too  much  now !  "  She  looked  up  fixedly  at  the 
mountain  line,  high  and  keen  against  the  winter  sky, 
"  Jombatiste  is  right,"  she  said  again  unsparingly,  "  I 
hadn't  ought  to  be  enjoying  them  .  .  .  their  father  ought 
to  be  alive  and  with  them.  He  was  willing  to  work  all 
he  could,  and  yet  he  ...  here  I've  lived  for  fifty-five 
years  and  never  aimed  my  salt  a  single  day.  What  was 
I  livin'  on?  The  stuff  these  folks  ought  to  ha'  had  to 
eat  ...  them  and  the  Lord  only  knows  how  many  more 
besides !  Jombatiste  is  right  .  .  .  what  I'm  doin'  now  is 
only  a  drop  in  the  bucket !  " 

She  started  from  her  somber  reverie  at  the  sound  of  a 
childish  wail  from  the  house.  .  .  .  "  That's  Sigurd  .  .  . 
I  knew  that  cat  would  scratch  him!"  she  told  me  with 
instant,  breathless  agitation,  as  though  the  skies  were 
falling,  and  darted  back.  After  a  moment's  hestitation  I, 
too,  went  back  and  watched  her  bind  up  with  stiff,  unac 
customed  old  fingers  the  little  scratched  hand,  watched 
the  frightened  little  boy  sob  himself  quiet  on  her  old 
knees  that  had  never  before  known  a  child's  soft  weight, 


A  DROP  IN  THE  BUCKET  297 

saw  the  expression  in  her  eyes  as  she  looked  down  at  the 
sleeping  baby  and  gazed  about  the  untidy  room  so  full  of 
life,  which  had  always  been  so  orderly  and  so  empty. 

She  lifted  the  little  boy  up  higher  so  that  his  tousled 
yellow  hair  rested  against  her  bosom.  He  put  an  arm 
around  her  neck  and  she  flushed  with  pleasure  like  a  girl; 
but,  although  she  held  him  close  to  her  with  a  sudden 
wistful  tenderness,  there  was  in  her  eyes  a  gloomy  aus 
terity  which  forbade  me  to  sentimentalize  over  the  pic 
ture  she  made. 

"  But,  Cousin  Tryphena,"  I  urged,  "  it  is  a  drop  in  the 
bucket,  you  know,  and  that's  something!" 

She  looked  down  at  the  child  on  her  knee,  she  laid  her 
cheek  against  his  bright  hair,  but  she  told  me  with  harsh, 
self-accusing  rigor,  "  Tain't  right  for  me  to  be  here 
alive  enjoying  that  dead  man's  little  boy." 

That  was  eighteen  months  ago.  Mrs.  Lindstrom  is 
dead  of  consumption;  but  the  two  children  are  rosy  and 
hearty  and  not  to  be  distinguished  from  the  other  little 
Yankees  of  the  village.  They  are  devotedly  attached  to 
their  Aunt  Tryphena  and  rule  her  despotically. 

And  so  we  live  along,  like  a  symbol  of  the  great  world, 
bewildered  Cousin  Tryphena  toiling  lovingly  for  her 
adopted  children,  with  the  memory  of  her  descent  into 
hell  still  darkening  and  confusing  her  kind  eyes;  Jom- 
batiste  clothing  his  old  body  in  rags  and  his  soul  in  flam 
ing  indignation  as  he  batters  hopefully  at  the  ramparts 
of  intrenched  unrighteousness  .  .  .  and  the  rest  of  us 
doing  nothing  at  all. 


THE  GOLDEN  TONGUE  OF  IRELAND 

Tongue  of  spice  and  salt  and  wine  and  honey, 
Magic,  mystic,  sweet,  intemperate  tongue! 

Flower  of  lavish  love  and  lyric  fury, 

Mixed  on  lips  forever  rash  and  young, 

Wildly  droll  and  quaintly  tender;— 

Hark,  the  hidden  melodies  of  Elfland 
In  the  under,  in  the  over  tone; 

Clear  faint  wailing  of  the  far-heard  banshee, 
Out  of  lands  where  never  the  sun  shone, 

Calling  doom  on  chieftains  dying.  .  .  . 


PIPER  TIM 

I 

WHEN  Moira  O'Donnell  was  born,  Timothy  Moran 
was  thirty-three  years  old,  a  faery  number,  as  he  often 
told  himself  afterward.  When  he  was  forty  and  she  was 
seven,  another  mystic  number,  he  dedicated  his  life  to 
her  and  she  gave  him  back  his  lost  kingdom  of  enchant 
ment.  It  was  on  the  evening  of  her  seventh  birthday  that 
she  led  him  to  the  Land  of  Heart's  Desire  he  thought 
he  had  left  forever  in  green  and  desolate  Donegal,  and 
her  birthday  fell  on  the  seventh  of  October,  and  October 
is  the  month  when  the  little  people  are  busiest.  He  never 
forgot  what  she  did  for  him  that  evening,  although  her 
part  in  it  was  so  brief. 

His  own  birthday  was  on  the  thirteenth  of  the  month, 
and  he  often  laid  his  sorrows  to  that  unchancy  date.  On 
the  seventh  he  sat  on  the  old  Round  Stone,  his  pipes  lying 
silent  beside  him,  and  brooded  on  his  heavy  ill.  Father 
Delancey  had  just  left  him  and  had  told  him  flatly  that  he 
had  no  ills  at  all.  Hence  he  sat,  his  heart  heavier  than 
ever,  drooping,  under  the  great  maple-tree,  the  road  white 
before  him,  leading  away  into  the  empty,  half-translucent 
shadows  of  starlight.  Father  Delancey  had  said  it  was 
only  the  faery  nonsense  in  his  head  that  made  him  miser 
able,  and  had  marshaled  before  him  the  irrefutable  bless 
ings  of  his  life.  Had  he  not  been  cared  for  from  the  first 
minute  of  his  landing  from  Ireland,  a  penniless  piper  of 

299 


300  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

nineteen,  as  though  the  holy  saints  themselves  were  about 
him?  Had  he  not  gone  direct  to  Father  Delancey,  sent 
by  the  priest  in  Donegal,  and  had  not  Father  Delancey  at 
once  placed  him  in  the  Wilcox  family,  kindliest,  heartiest, 
and  most  stirring  of  New  England  farmers  ?  And  had  he 
not  lived  in  prosperity  with  them  ever  since? 

Timothy  started  at  the  faery  number.  '*  Twinty-one 
years  ?  So  'tis,  Father — an'  more !  Tis  twinty-one  years 
to-day  since  I  came,  aven  and  true — the  seventh  day  of 
October.  Sure,  somethin'  ought  to  happen  on  such  a 
day— oughtn't  it?" 

"  Happen?"  queried  Father  Delancey. 

"  The  seventh  day  of  October,  the  twinty-first  year  and 
October  bein'  the  month  for  thim,"  said  Timothy,  eluci 
dating  confidently. 

Father  Delancey  frowned  and  broke  into  an  angry 
exclamation,  "  'Tis  simple  mad  ye  are,  Timothy  Moran, 
with  your  faery  foolishness,  and  I've  a  half  a  mind  to 
take  your  pipes  away  from  you  as  a  penance  for  your 
ignorant  superstition ! " 

"  But,  Father,  I'm  the  seventh  son  and  sure  ye  must 
admit  'tis  a  lonesome  country,  all  this,  that  looks  so  like 
Donegal  and  Killarney  mountains,  an'  is  so  dead-like,  wi' 
no  little  people  to  fill  up  the  big  gap  between  the  dead  an' 
the  livin',  an'  the  good  an'  the  bad.  'Tis  empty,  all  this 
valley." 

"  Timothy  Moran,  that  are  my  sister's  husband's  cou 
sin's  son,  I'm  ashamed  of  ye,  an'  I  bid  ye  note  that  'twas 
the  hand  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  herself  that  sent  ye  out  o' 
Ireland,  for  if  you'd  'a'  stayed  in  th'  ould  country  you'd 
'a'  been  bewitched  long  before  now — not,  savin'  us  all  th' 
blessed  saints,  that  I  belave  in  any  of  your  nonsense !  " 


PIPER  TIM  301 

Timothy  smiled  at  this  with  an  innocent  malice.  "  You 
see  how  'tis,  Father.  You  cannot  kape  yourself  from  be- 
lavin'  in  thim  and  you  a  man  o'  God." 

"  I  do  not,  Timothy !  Tis  but  a  way  of  speech  that  I 
learned  in  my  childhood.  An'  'tis  lucky  for  you  that  I 
have  a  knowledge  of  thim,  for  any  other  priest  would 
have  driven  you  out  of  the  parish,  you  and  your  stubborn 
pipes  that  do  naught  but  play  faery  music.  An'  you  a 
man  of  forty  in  a  trifle  of  six  days,  and  no  wife  an' 
childer  to  keep  you  from  foolish  notions.  If  ye  had,  now, 
you  could  be  livin'  in  the  proper  tenant's  house  for  the 
Wilcox's  man,  instead  of  Michael  O'Donnell,  who  has  no 
business  livin'  up  here  on  the  hill  so  far  from  his  work 
that  he  can  come  home  but  once  a  week  to  look  after  his 
poor  motherless  child.  I  will  say  for  you,  Tim,  that  you 
do  your  duty  by  that  bit  of  a  slip  of  a  girl  baby,  keepin' 
her  so  neat  and  clean  an'  all,  times  when  Mike's  not  here." 

Timothy  did  not  raise  his  drooping  head  at  this  praise, 
and  something  about  his  attitude  struck  sharp  across 
the  priest's  trained  observation.  The  big,  shambling, 
red-headed  man  looked  like  a  guilty  child.  There  was  a 
moment's  silence,  while  Father  Delancey  speculated,  and 
then  his  experienced  instinct  sped  him  to  the  bull's-eye. 
'  Timothy  Moran,  you're  not  putting  your  foolish  notions 
in  the  head  of  that  innocent  child  o'  God,  Moira  O'Don 
nell,  are  you  ?  " 

The  red  head  sank  lower. 

"  Answer  me,  man !  Are  ye  fillin'  her  mind  with  your 
sidhe  *  and  your  red-hatted  little  people  an'  your  stories 
of  '  gentle  places  '  an'  the  leprechaun?  " 

Timothy  arose  suddenly  and  flung  his  long  arms  abroad 
*  Pronounced  shee  (as  in  Banshee),  the  fairies. 


302  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

in  a  gesture  of  revolt.  "  I  am  that,  Father  Delancey,  an' 
'tis  th'  only  comfort  of  my  life,  livin'  it,  as  I  do,  in  a  dead 
country — a  valley  where  folks  have  lived  and  died  for 
two  hundred  years  such  lumps  of  clay  that  they've 
niver  had  wan  man  sharp  enough  to  see  the  country 
in  between  heaven  and  earth."  He  lapsed  again  into 
his  listless  position  on  the  Round  Stone.  "  But  ye  needn't 
be  a-fearin'  for  her  soul,  Father — her  wid  th'  black  hair 
an*  the  big  gray  eyes  like  wan  that  cud  see  thim  if  she 
wud !  She's  as  dead  a  lump  as  anny  of  th'  rest — as  thim 
meat-eatin'  Protestants,  the  Wilcoxes,  heaven  save  their 
kindly  bodies,  for  they've  no  souls  at  all,  at  all."  From 
the  stone  he  picked  up  a  curiously  shaped  willow  whistle 
with  white  lines  carved  on  it  in  an  odd  criss-cross  pat 
tern.  '  To-day's  her  seventh  birthday,  an'  I  showed  her 
how  to  make  the  cruachan  whistle,  an'  when  I'd  finished 
she  blew  on  it  a  loud  note  that  wud  ha'  wakened  the  sidhe 
for  miles  around  in  Donegal.  An'  then  she  looked  at  me 
as  dumb  as  a  fish,  her  big  gray  eyes  blank  as  a  plowed 
field  wid  nothin'  sown  in  it.  She  niver  has  a  word  to 
show  that  she  hears  me,  even,  when  I  tell  o'  the  gentle 
people."  He  added  in  a  whisper  to  himself,  "  But  maybe 
she's  only  waiting." 

Tis  the  Virgin  protectin'  her  from  yer  foolishness, 
Tim,"  returned  the  priest,  rising  with  a  relieved  air. 
"  She'll  soon  be  goin'  to  district  school  along  with  all  the 
other  hard-headed  little  Yankees,  and  then  your  tales 
can't  give  her  notions."  With  which  triumphant  medita 
tion  he  walked  briskly  away,  leaving  Timothy  to  sit  alone 
with  his  pipes  under  the  maple-tree,  flaming  with  a  still 
heat  of  burning  autumn  red,  like  a  faery  fire. 

His  head  sank  heavily  in  his  hands  as  his  heart  grew 


PIPER  TIM  303 

intolerably  sad  with  the  lack  he  felt  in  all  the  world, 
most  of  all  in  himself.  He  had  often  tried  to  tell  him 
self  what  made  the  world  so  dully  repellant,  but  he  never 
could  get  beyond,  '  'Tis  as  though  I  was  aslape  an'  yet 
not  quite  aslape — just  half  wakin',  an'  somethin'  lovely 
is  goin'  on  in  the  next  room,  an'  I  can't  wake  up  to  see 
what  'tis.  The  trouble's  with  th'  people.  They're  all 
dead  aslape  here,  an'  there's  nobody  to  wake  me  up." 

"  Piper  Tim!  Piper  Tim!  "  was  breathed  close  to  his 
ear.  He  sprang  up,  with  wide,  startled  eyes. 

"  Piper  Tim,"  said  the  little  girl  gravely,  "I've  seen 
them." 

The  man  stared  at  her  in  a  breathless  silence. 

"  A  little  wee  woman  with  a  red  hat  and  kerchief 
around  her  neck,  an'  she  said,  '  Go  straight  to  Piper  Tim 
an'  tell  him  to  play  "  The  Call  o'  the  Sidhe  "  as  he  sits  on 
the  Round  Stone,  for  this  is  th'  day  of  the  Cruachan 
Whistle/  " 

The  child  put  out  her  hand,  and  drew  him  to  the  pipes, 
still  keeping  her  deep  eyes  fixed  on  him,  "  Play,  Piper 
Tim,  an'  shut  your  eyes  an'  I'll  see  what  you  should  see 
an'  tell  you  what  'tis." 

The  first  notes  were  quavering  as  the  man's  big  frame 
shook,  but  the  little  hands  across  his  eyes  seemed  to  steady 
him,  and  the  final  flourish  was  like  a  call  of  triumph.  In 
the  silence  which  followed  the  child  spoke  in  her  high  little 
treble  with  a  grave  elation.  "  They're  here,  Piper  Tim, 
all  the  river  fog  in  the  valley  is  full  of  them,  dancin'  and 
singin'  so  gay-like  to  cheer  up  the  poor  hills.  An'  whist ! 
Here  they  come  up  the  road,  troops  and  troops  of  them, 
all  so  bright  in  the  ferlie  green;  an'  sure,"  with  a  little 
catch  of  merriment,  "  sure,  they've  no  toes  on  their  feet  at 


304  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

all!  They've  danced  them  all  away.  And  now,  Piper 
Tim,  hold  your  breath,  for  they'll  be  after  comin'  by, 
but  all  so  still,  so  still !  so  you  won't  hear  them  and  maybe 
think  to  open  your  eyes  and  see  them — for  that  'ud  mean 
— sh !  sh !  Piper  Tim,  don[t  stir !  They're  here!  They're 
here!" 

His  eyes  ached  with  the  pressure  of  the  strong  little 
hands  across  them,  his  ears  ached  with  straining  them 
into  the  silence  which  lay  about  them.  His  heart  beat 
fast  with  hope  and  then  with  certainty.  Yes,  it  was 
no  longer  the  thin,  dead  silence  of  the  New  England 
woods  he  knew  so  unhappily  well.  It  was  the  still 
that  comes  with  activity  suspended.  It  was  like  the 
quivering  quiet  of  a  dancer,  suddenly  stricken  motionless 
to  listen  for  the  sound  of  intruding  footsteps.  There 
was  not  the  faintest  sound,  but  the  silence  was  full  of 
that  rich  consciousness  of  life  which  marks  the  first 
awakening  of  a  profound  sleeper. 

The  hands  were  withdrawn  from  before  his  eyes,  but  he 
did  not  open  them.  He  reached  blindly  for  his  pipes,  and 
played  "  The  Song  of  Angus  to  the  Stars,"  tears  of  joy 
running  from  between  his  closed  eyelids,  to  recognize 
in  his  own  music  the  quality  he  had  been  starving  for; 
the  sense  of  the  futile,  poignant  beauty,  of  the  lovely  and 
harmless  tragedy,  of  the  sweet,  moving,  gay  sad  meaning 
of  things. 

When  he  looked  about  him  he  was  quite  alone.  Moira 
was  gone,  and  the  road  lay  white  and  still  before  him. 

II 

He  did  not  see  her  all  the  next  day,  although  he  went 
down  to  the  little  house  to  do  the  household  tasks  his  big 


PIPER  TIM  305 

hands  performed  with  so  curious  a  skill.  He  wished  to 
see  her  and  clear  his  mind  of  a  weight  which  the  morn 
ing's  light  had  put  upon  him ;  but  she  did  not  come  in  an 
swer  to  his  call.  The  little  house  seemed  full  of  her  in  its 
apparent  emptiness,  and  several  times  he  had  swung 
sharply  about,  feeling  her  back  of  him,  but  always  the 
room  had  turned  a  blank  face. 

That  evening  he  was  returning  late  from  the  upland 
pastures  where  he  had  been  searching  vainly  for  a  lost 
cow.  His  path  lay  through  a  thick  copse  of  maple  sap 
lings  where  it  was  quite  dark.  As  he  emerged  into  a 
stony  pasture,  he  saw  the  child  standing  still  in  the  center 
of  a  ring  of  fern,  brown  and  crumpled  by  the  early  frosts. 
When  he  appeared  she  held  him  motionless  by  the  sudden 
passion  of  her  gestured  appeal  for  silence.  She  did  not 
stir  after  this,  her  hands  laid  along  her  cheeks  as  though 
to  hold  her  head  quite  still,  her  eyes  directed  with  a  smil 
ing  eagerness  toward  a  huge  rock,  looming  dimly  in  the 
transparent  twilight.  The  silence  was  oppressive.  Timo 
thy's  blood  ran  chill  as  the  expectancy  grew  more  and 
more  strained  in  the  child's  eyes.  He  did  not  dare  look  at 
the  rock  himself.  He  stared  only  at  the  elfin  creature 
before  him,  and  when  her  hands  were  finally  flung  out  in 
a  gesture  of  welcoming  ardor,  he  broke  the  unearthly 
silence  by  crying  out  loud  in  a  rapid  whirl,  "  God  save  us. 
Christ  save  us !  The  Holy  Virgin  guard  us !  St.  Patrick 
defend  us!  St.  Columba— 

The  little  girl  burst  into  a  storm  of  tears  and  sank 
down  on  the  ferns.  Timothy  stopped  his  hysterical 
litany  and  ran  toward  her.  "  Don't  you  come  a-near  me, 
bad  Piper  Tim!  "  she  sobbed.  "  You  don't  dare  step  on 
the  magic  circle  anyhow.  It  'ud  burn  your  wicked  foot !  " 


306  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

The  big  farm  laborer  drew  back  in  a  terror  he  in 
stantly  disguised.  "  I  was  just  lookin'  for  you,  Moira, 
aroon,"  he  said  propitiatingly.  '  I  was  wishin'  to  tell 
you — to  tell  you — why,  that  it's  all  pretend.  There  aren't 
any  little  people  really,  you  know.  'Tis  just  old  Tim's 
nonsense."  He  shivered  at  the  blasphemy  and  crossed 
himself.  "  Or,  if  there  are  any,  'tis  only  in  th'  ould  coun 
try."  The  child  rose  to  her  feet,  eying  him  strangely,  her 
eyes  like  deep  pools. 

He  went  on  conscientiously,  with  a  mental  eye  on 
Father  Delancey,  "  An'  if  there  arc  any,  which  they 
aren't,  they're  bad  things  for  Christians  to  have  aught  to 
do  with,  because  they  know  neither  right  nor  wrong,  and 
'tisn't  fit  that  mortals  should  iver  be  light  an'  gay  wi'  that 
burden  gone!  So  they're  bad  for  us — an'  we  shouldn't 
think  of  thim,  and  just  cross  ourselves  wheniver " 

The  unspoken  protest  in  the  child's  face  was  grown  so 
passionate  that  he  interrupted  himself  to  answer  it  in  a 
burst  of  sympathy.  "  Och,  Moira,  acushla,  sure  an'  I 

know  how  'tis  to  ye "    And  then  with  a  reaction  to 

virtue,  he  said  sternly,  "  An'  if  they're  not  bad,  why  do 
they  go  when  you  call  on  the  blessed  saints?" 

At  this  the  child's  face  twisted  again  for  tears.  "  Och, 
bad  Piper  Tim,  to  scare  them  away  from  me!  It's  not 
that  they're  bad — only  that  good's  too  heavy  for  them. 
They're  such  little  people!  It's  too  heavy!  It's  too 
heavy."  She  ran  away  through  the  dusk,  sobbing  and  call 
ing  this  over  her  shoulder  reproachfully. 

In  the  weeks  which  followed,  old  Timothy  Moran,  as 
he  was  called,  could  scarcely  complain  that  he  was  but 
half  awake.  He  seemed  to  be  making  up  for  the  dull 
apathy  of  his  long  exile  by  the  storminess  of  his  days 


PIPER  TIM  307 

and  nights.  Mrs.  Wilcox,  bustling  housewife,  hastening 
about  the  kitchen,  engaged  in  some  late  evening  task,  was 
moved  to  a  sudden  burst  of  hysterical  tears,  by  the  faint 
sound  of  Tim's  pipes,  dropping  down  to  her  from  the 
Round  Stone  in  a  whirling  roulade  of  ever-ascending 
merriness.  "  You,  Ralph !  "  she  cried  angrily  through 
her  sobs,  .to  her  oldest  boy,  stricken  open-mouthed  and 
silent  by  his  mother's  amazing  outburst,  "  you,  Ralph, 
run  up  to  the  Round  Stone  and  tell  the  Irishman  to  stop 
playing  that  jig  over  and  over.  I'm  that  tired  to-night  it 
drives  me  wild  with  nerves !  "  As  she  brushed  away  the 
tears  she  said  fretfully,  "  My  sakes !  When  my  liver  gets 
to  tormenting  me  so  I  have  the  megrims  like  a  girl,  it's 
time  to  do  something." 

The  boy  came  back  to  say  that  Old  Tim  had  stopped 
playing  "  the  jig  "  before  he  reached  him,  and  was  lying 
sobbing  on  the  stone. 

Moira  was  as  approachable  as  a  barn  swallow,  swoop 
ing  into  the  house  for  a  mouthful  of  food  and  off  again 
to  the  sky  apparently.  Timothy's  child-heart  was  guiltily 
heavy  within  him,  for  all  his  excitement,  and  when  he 
finally  caught  her  in  the  pine  woods  he  spoke  briefly  and 
firmly,  almost  like  Father  Delancey  himself.  "  Moira, 
Tim  was  a  big  fool  to  tell  you  lies.  There  aren't  really 
any  little  people.  'Tis  only  a  way  of  talkin'-like,  to  say 
how  lovely  the  woods  and  stars  an'  all  are." 

"  Why  do  you  sit  on  the  Round  Stone  evenings  ? " 
asked  Moira  defiantly. 

"  That's  just  it!  I  pretend  all  kind  o'  things,  but  it's 
really  because  the  moon  is  like  gold,  and  the  white  fog 
comes  up  in  puffs  like  incense  in  the  church,  an'  the  val 
ley's  all  bright  wi'  lamps  like  the  sky  wi'  stars.  That's 


308  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

all  anybody  means  by  fairies — just  how  lovely  things  are 
if  we  can  but  open  our  eyes  to  see  thim,  an'  take  time 
from  th'  ugly  business  o'  livin'  to  hear  thim,  and  get  a 
place  quiet  enough  to  half  see  what  everything  means. 
I  didn't  know  before,  in  Ireland,  but  now  I'm  like  one 
born  again  to  the  ferlie  country,  and  now  I  think  I  know. 
There  aren't  any  Little  People  really  but  just  in  your  own 

head " 

Moira  shook  off  his  hand  and  faced  him,  laughing 
mockingly,  her  dark  eyes  wide  with  an  elfin  merriment. 
"Are  there  not,  Piper  Tim?  Are  there  not?  Listen! 
You'll  see !  "  She  held  up  a  tiny  forefinger  to  the  great 
man  towering  above  her.  As  he  looked  down  on  her,  so 
pixy-like  in  the  twilight  of  the  pines,  he  felt  his  flesh 
creep.  She  seemed  to  be  waiting  for  something  infinitely 
comic  which  yet  should  startle  her.  She  was  poised,  half 
turned  as  though  for  flight,  yet  hung  so,  without  a  quiver 
in  an  endless  listening  pause.  The  man  tried  in  vain  to 
remember  the  name  of  a  single  saint,  so  held  was  he  by 
the  breathless  expectancy  in  the  eyes  of  the  little  hob 
goblin.  His  nerves  gave  way  with  a  loud  snap  when  she 
suddenly  leaped  up  at  him  with  snapping  fingers  and 
some  whispered,  half-heard  exclamation  of  "Now! 
Now! "  and  turning  he  plunged  down  the  hill  in  panic- 
stricken  flight.  And  the  next  day  Father  Delancey  took 
her  down  to  the  valley  to  begin  her  schooling. 


Ill 

Upon  her  return  she  had  adopted  the  attitude  which 
she  never  changed  during  all  the  years  until  Timothy 
went  away.  She  would  not  speak  openly,  nor  allow 


PIPER  TIM  309 

him  to  discuss  "  their  "  existence.  "  They  mind  their 
business  and  we  should  mind  ours,"  she  said,  eying 
him  hard;  but  she  made  his  world  over  for  him.  Every 
spring  she  came  back  from  the  valley  school  and  every 
autumn  she  went  away;  and  the  months  in  between  were 
golden.  After  Timothy's  work  was  done  in  the  evenings, 
he  left  the  hot  kitchen,  redolent  of  food  and  fire  and 
kindly  human  life,  took  his  pipes  up  on  the  Round  Stone 
and  played  one  after  another  of  the  songs  of  the  sidhe, 
until  the  child's  white  face  shone  suddenly  from  the  dusk. 

Then  their  entertainment  varied.  Sometimes  they  sat 
and  watched  the  white  river  fog  rise  toward  them,  trans 
lucent  and  distant  at  first,  and  then  blowing  upon  them 
in  gusty,  impalpable  billows.  Timothy's  tongue  was 
loosened  by  the  understanding  in  the  little  girl's  eyes  and 
he  poured  out  to  her  the  wise  foolishness  of  his  incon 
sequent  and  profound  faery  lore.  He  told  her  what  was 
in  the  fog  for  him,  the  souls  of  mountain  people  long 
dead,  who  came  back  to  their  home  heights  thus.  He  re 
lated  long  tales  of  the  doings  of  the  leprechaun,  with 
lovely,  irrelevant  episodes,  and  told  her  what  he  thought 
was  their  meaning. 

Some  nights  the  moon  rode  high  and  the  air  was  clear 
and  those  were  not  the  times  for  words — only  for  sitting 
quite  still  and  playing  every  air  in  all  the  world  on  the 
pipes.  Moira  lay  beside  him,  her  strange,  wide  eyes  fixed 
intently  on  the  road  and  the  shadows  until  she  peopled 
them  almost  visibly  to  the  musician  with  the  folk  of  his 
melodies — with  Angus,  the  beautiful  and  strong,  with 
Maive,  the  sad,  the  happy,  with  Congal  of  the  frightful 
Vision  of  War,  and  Mananan,  strange  wanderer  on  these 
mountain  tops. 


310  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

Sometimes  it  rained,  the  long  steady  downpour  of  sum 
mer  nights,  and  they  sat  on  the  steps  of  Michael  O'Don- 
nell's  little  cabin,  Timothy's  pipes  sounding  sweet  and 
shrill  against  the  deep  note  of  the  rushing  rain.  This 
was  the  time  of  the  wildest  stories,  when  sheltering  walls 
were  close  about  them;  of  newly  wed  wives  carried  off 
by  the  fairies  to  live  happy  always,  always  without  a 
moment  of  pain,  and  then  to  perish  utterly  on  the  Day  of 
Judgment,  like  a  last  year's  butterfly,  for  souls  cannot 
live  without  sorrow;  of  newly  born  babes  whose  souls 
were  carried  away  by  the  sidhe  because  a  cock  was  not 
killed  on  the  night  of  their  birth,  and  of  the  mystic  mean 
ing  of  vicarious  sacrifice;  of  people  who  had  lain  down 
to  sleep  unaware  in  a  fairy  ring  and  were  foolish  ever 
afterward — that  is,  as  people  say,  foolish,  but  really  wise, 
for  they  saw  how  things  are ;  of  homes  built  unknowingly 
across  a  fairy  path  where  the  sidhe  take  their  journeys, 
and  how  ill  luck  followed  the  inhabitants  until  they 
moved,  and  of  the  strange  penalties  for  living  out  of 
harmony  with  the  little-known  currents  of  the  soul's 
life;  of  how  blind  men  see  more  than  others;  of  how  a 
fool  is  one  whose  mind  is  so  cleared  of  all  futile  com 
monplace  traffic  that  it  reflects  untroubled  and  serene 
the  stars  and  their  courses;  of  how  wisdom  is  folly, 
and  life,  death.  All  these  things  and  many  more  did 
Timothy  say  in  words  and  play  in  music  on  his  pipes, 
and  to  all  of  them  Moira  gave  her  wide  comprehending 
silence. 

The  best  of  all  was  on  evenings  when  the  stars  came 
out  first,  and  then  as  the  two  sat  watching  them  from 
the  Round  Stone  they  suddenly  began  to  pale,  and  the 
moon  flashed  into  sight,  rising  swiftly  over  the  mountain 


PIPER  TIM  3i! 

Moira  called  "  The  Hill  o'  Delights,"  because  it  was  from 
a  wide,  white  door  in  it  that  the  rushing,  light-footed 
little  people  came  out  every  evening  when  the  twilight 
fell  and  the  harsh  endeavor  of  human  life  was  stilled  to 
peace.  There  was  neither  talk  nor  music  on  those  even 
ings,  but  a  silence  full,  like  the  lovely  world  about  them, 
of  unsaid,  quivering  joy.  Sometimes  Timothy  would 
turn  after  such  a  long  time  of  deep  and  cheering  mutual 
knowledge  of  how  fair  were  all  things,  and  find  Moira 
slipped  away  from  beside  him ;  but  so  impalpable  was  the 
companionship  she  gave  him  in  the  strange  and  sweet 
confusion  of  his  thoughts  that  he  did  not  feel  himself 
alone,  though  she  might  be  already  deep  in  the  pines  be 
hind  him. 

The  girl  grew  taller,  but  the  cool  whiteness  of  her  face 
was  untinged  by  any  flush  of  young  maidenhood.  At 
seventeen  she  was  a  slender  sprite  of  a  girl,  to  reach  whose 
unearthly  aloofness  the  warm  human  hands  of  her  com 
panions  strained  unavailing.  Each  winter  she  descended 
to  the  valley  and  to  school  and  church,  a  silent,  remote 
child,  moving  like  one  in  a  dream.  And  every  spring  she 
came  back  to  the  hill,  to  Timothy  and  his  pipes,  to  the 
pines  and  the  uplands,  to  the  Round  Stone  and  the  white 
road  in  front  of  it.  Ralph  Wilcox,  hearty,  kindly  son  of 
his  hearty,  kindly  parents,  tried  to  speak  to  her  long 
enough  to  make  her  seem  real,  but  she  was  rarely  in  the 
house  except  during  the  day  and  a  half  of  each  week 
when  her  father  was  there;  and  on  their  casual  en 
counters  out  of  doors  she  melted  from  before  his  eyes 
like  a  pixie,  knowing  the  hiding  places  and  turns  of  his 
own  land  better  than  he.  Sometimes  he  caught  a  glimpse 
of  her  afterward,  regarding  him  steadily  and  curiously 


312  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

from  a  nook  in  a  hillside,  and  once  as  she  darted  away 
she  had  dropped  a  handkerchief  and  turned  her  head  in 
time  to  see  him  pick  it  up;  but  she  did  not  slacken  her 
pace,  or  speak  to  him  then  or  at  all. 

She  rarely  spoke,  even  to  Timothy,  but  this  was  no 
barrier  between  them.  All  the  winter  Timothy  lived  on 
the  thoughts  of  the  spring,  and  when  the  arbutus  and 
Moira  came  back  he  poured  out  to  her  the  strange  treas 
ures  he  had  found  in  his  heart.  Scarcely  to  her,  for  she 
only  gazed  silent  at  the  stars  as  he  talked.  Rather  she 
seemed  to  unlock  in  him  the  rich  stores  of  his  own  under 
standing  and  emotion.  He  marveled  that  he  could  ever 
have  found  the  valley  empty.  He  felt  within  him  a  swell 
ing  flood,  ever  renewed,  of  significance  to  fill  all  his  world 
with  a  sweet  and  comforting  meaning. 

And  so  his  red  hair  grew  threaded  with  white,  and  his 
foolish,  idle  heart  happier  and  happier  as  the  years  went 
on.  Then,  one  midwinter  day,  Father  Delancey  climbed 
the  hill  to  say  that  Timothy's  sister's  husband  was  dead, 
and  that  Timothy  was  sent  for  to  take  his  place,  hold  the 
Nebraska  claim,  work  the  land,  and  be  a  father  to  his 
sister's  children.  Timothy  was  stunned  with  horror,  but 
the  unbending  will  of  the  never-contradicted  parish  priest 
bore  him  along  without  question. 

"  Sure,  Tim,  go !  I  tell  you  to !  'Tis  the  only  thing  to 
do !  And  'twill  be  a  man's  work  and  earn  ye  many  hours 
out  of  purgatory.  An'  'twill  be  grand  for  ye,  ye  that 
never  would  have  a  family  o'  your  own — here's  the 
Blessed  Virgin  pushin'  ye  into  one,  ready-made.  'Twill 
be  the  makin'  o'  ye,  'twill  make  ye  rale  human,  an'  ye'll 
have  no  more  time  for  star-gazin'  an'  such  foolishness. 
Ye  can  find  out  what  people  are  in  the  world  for,  instead 


PIPER  TIM  313 

o'  keepin'  yerself  so  outside  o'  things.  Sure,  yes,  man, 
yes,  I'll  tell  Moira  ye  said  good-by  to  her,  an' — yes,  I 
give  ye  my  word,  and  promise  true  and  true,  I'll  lave  ye 
know  if  she  moves  away  or  if  any  harm  comes  to  her." 


IV 

His  grizzled  hair  was  turned  quite  white  when  his 
sister  kissed  him  good-by,  fresh  tears  in  her  eyes,  scarcely 
dry  from  the  excitement  of  her  youngest  daughter's  wed 
ding.  She  had  a  moment  of  divination  like  his,  and  said 
sadly,  "  There's  no  use  trying  to  thank  ye,  Timmy,  words 
can't  do  it.  If  ye'd  been  anybody  else,  I  cud  ha'  said  ye 
got  ye'r  pay  for  all  these  long,  hard  years  in  the  love  the 
childer  bear  ye.  That's  the  pay  folks  get  for  workin'  an' 
livin'  for  others — but  ye're  not  folks.  Is't  that  ye're  the 
seventh  son?  Is't  that  ye've  second  sight?  Is't  that — 
what  is't  that  makes  ye  so  far  away?  An'  what  is  ye'r 
pay,  Tim?  Now  that  it's  over  and  the  children  all  safe 
and  grown  up,  ye  look  yerself  like  a  child  that's  done  its 
lesson  an'  run  out  to  play.  Is't  all  just  work  or  play  with 
ye  ?  Can't  ye  niver  just  live? '' 

In  truth  her  brother's  eagerness  to  be  away  was  scarcely 
concealed  at  all  from  the  grateful,  wistful  Irish  eyes 
about  him.  He  was  breathless  with  haste  to  be  off.  The 
long  trip  to  New  England  was  a  never-ending  nightmare 
of  delay  to  him,  and  although  he  had  planned  for  years 
to  walk  up  the  hill,  his  trembling  old  legs  dragged  in  a 
slow  progress  maddening  to  his  impatience.  A  farmer, 
driving  by,  offered  him  a  lift,  which  he  accepted  grate 
fully,  sitting  strained  far  forward  on  the  high  seat.  At 
a  turn  of  the  road  he  looked  back  and  saw  that  he  had 


314  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

passed  the  cluster  of  pines  where  Moira  had  laughed  at 
him,  and  where  he  had  felt  so  thick  about  him  the  throng 
ing  rush  of  his  newly  awakened  perceptions  of  the  finer 
meaning  of  things,  the  gay,  sweet  crowd  of  gentle  little 
people. 

He  stopped  the  farmer  and,  leaping  down  from 
the  high  seat,  he  took  his  pipes  under  his  arm  and 
fairly  ran  up  the  little  path.  His  rheumatic  knee 
creaked  a  little,  but  the  color  came  up  hard  in  his 
tired  old  face  as  the  twilight  of  the  pines  and  their 
pungent,  welcoming  breath  fell  about  him.  He  cast  him 
down  and  buried  his  face  in  the  rust-red  dried  needles. 
He  did  not  weep,  but  from  time  to  time  a  long  sigh  heaved 
his  shoulders.  Then  he  turned  over  and  lay  on  his  back, 
looking  at  the  sunset-yellow  sky  through  the  green,  thick- 
clustered  needles,  noticing  how  the  light  made  each  one 
glisten  as  though  dipped  in  molten  gold.  His  hand 
strayed  out  to  his  pipes,  lying  beside  him  with  mute, 
gaping  mouths.  "  The  Gold  o'  the  Glamour,"  he  mur 
mured  to  himself,  and  as  he  broke  the  silence  with  the 
old  tune  faintly  blown,  he  felt  the  wood  peopled  about 
him  as  of  yore  with  twilight  forms.  Unseen  bright  eyes 
gazed  at  him  from  behind  tree-trunks,  and  the  branches 
were  populous  with  invisible,  kindly  listeners.  The  very 
hush  was  symbolic  of  the  consciousness  of  the  wood  that 
he  was  there  again.  There  was  none  of  the  careless  com 
monplace  of  rustling  leaves,  and  snapping  twigs,  and  in 
different,  fearless  bird-song.  In  the  death-like  still  he 
felt  life  quivering  and  observant  with  a  thousand  inno 
cent,  curious,  welcoming  eyes. 

When  he  had  quavered  through  the  last  note  he  let  the 
pipes  fall  and  gazed  about  him  with  a  smile,  like  a  happy 


PIPER  TIM  315 

old  child.  The  sun  sank  behind  the  mountain  as  he  looked, 
and  he  pulled  himself  heavily  up.  His  way  to  the  farm 
lay  over  bare  upland  pastures  where  his  feet,  accustomed 
for  years  to  the  yielding  prarie  levels,  stumbled  and 
tripped  among  the  loose  stones.  Twilight  came  on 
rapidly,  so  that  he  found  himself  several  times  walking 
blindly  through  fairy  rings  of  fern.  He  crossed  himself 
and  bowed  his  head  three  times  to  the  west,  where  the 
evening  star  now  shone  pale  in  the  radiance  of  the  glow 
ing  sky.  Between  two  of  the  ridges  he  wandered  into  a 
bog  where  his  feet,  hot  in  their  heavy  boots,  felt  grate 
fully  the  oozing,  cool  brown  water. 

And  then,  as  he  stepped  into  the  lane,  dark  with  dense 
maple-trees  and  echoing  faintly  with  the  notes  of  the 
hermit  thrush,  he  saw  the  light  of  the  little  house  glimmer 
through  the  trees  in  so  exactly  the  spot  where  his  hunger 
ing  eyes  sought  it  that  his  heart  gave  a  great  hammering 
leap  in  his  breast. 

He  knocked  at  the  door,  half  doubtfully,  for  all  his 
eagerness.  It  might  be  she  lived  elsewhere  in  the  parish 
now.  He  had  schooled  himself  to  this  thought  so  that  it 
was  no  surprise,  although  a  heavy  disappointment,  when 
the  door  was  opened  by  a  small  dark  man  holding  a  sleep 
ing  baby  on  his  arm.  Timothy  lowered  his  voice  and  the 
man  gave  a  brief  and  hushed  answer.  He  spoke  in  a 
strong  French-Canadian  accent.  "  Moira  O'Donnell  ?  I 
nevaire  heard  before.  Go  to  ze  house  on  ze  hill — mebbe 
zey  know " 

He  closed  the  door,  and,  through  the  open  window, 
Timothy  saw  him  sit  down,  still  holding  the  baby  and 
looking  at  it  as  though  the  interrupting  episode  were  al 
ready  forgotten.  The  old  man  shivered  with  a  passing 


3i6  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

eerie  sense  of  being  like  a  ghost  knocking  vainly  at  the 
doors  of  the  living.  He  limped  up  the  hill,  and  knocked 
on  the  kitchen  door  of  the  old  Wilcox  house.  To  his 
eyes,  dilated  with  the  wide  dusk  of  the  early  evening,  the 
windows  seemed  to  blaze  with  light,  and  when  the  door 
was  opened  to  him  he  shaded  his  eyes,  blinking  fast 
against  the  rays  of  a  lamp  held  high  in  the  hand  of  a 
round,  little  woman  who  looked  at  him  with  an  im 
personal  kindness.  His  heart  beat  so  he  could  not 
speak. 

Suddenly  from  the  past  rang  out  his  old  name,  the  one 
he  had  almost  lost  in  the  dreary  years  of  "  Uncle  Tim  " 
which  lay  behind  him. 

"  Why,  Piper  Tim !  "  cried  the  woman  in  a  voice  of 
exceeding  warmth  and  affection.  "  Why,  it's  dear,  dear, 
darling  old  Piper  Tim  come  back  to  visit  his  old  home. 
I  knew  ye  in  a  minute  by  the  pipes.  Come  in!  Come 
in !  There's  not  a  soul  livin'  or  dead  that's  welcomer  in 
th'  house  of  Moira  Wilcox." 

The  name  blazed  high  through  all  the  confusion  of  his 
swimming  senses.  To  his  blank  look  she  returned  a  mel 
low  laugh.  "  Why  sure,  Timmy  darlint,  hasn't  anybody 
iver  told  ye  I  was  married?  I'd  have  written  ye  myself, 
only  that  I  knew  you  couldn't  read  it,  and  'twas  hard  to 
tell  through  other  people.  Though,  saints  preserve  us, 
'tis  long  since  I  thought  anything  about  it,  one  way  or 
th'  other.  Tis  as  nat'ral  as  breathing  now." 

She  was  pulling  him  into  the  warm,  light  room,  tak 
ing  his  cap  and  pipes  from  him,  and  at  the  last  she 
pushed  him  affectionately  into  a  chair,  and  stood  looking 
kindly  at  his  pale  agitation,  her  arms  wide  in  a  soft  angle 
as  she  placed  her  hands  on  her  rounded  hips.  "Oh, 


PIPER  TIM  317 

Timothy  Moran,  you  darlint!  Moira's  that  glad  to  see 
you !  You  mind  me  of  the  times  when  I  was  young  and 
that's  comin'  to  be  long  ago." 

She  turned  and  stepped  hastily  to  the  stove  from  which 
rose  an  appetizing  smell  of  frying  ham.  As  she  bent  her 
plump,  flushed  face  over  this,  the  door  opened  and  two 
dark-eyed  little  girls  darted  in.  On  seeing  a  stranger, 
they  were  frozen  in  mid-flight  with  the  shy  gaze  of  coun 
try  children. 

"  Here,  childer,  'tis  Piper  Tim  come  back  to  visit  us. 
Piper  Tim  that  I've  told  ye  so  many  tales  about — an'  the 
gran'  tunes  he  can  play  on  his  pipes.  He  can  play  with 
ye  better  nor  I — he  niver  has  aught  else  to  do!  "  She 
smiled  a  wide,  friendly  smile  on  the  old  man  as  she  said 
this,  to  show  she  meant  no  harm,  and  turned  the  slices  of 
ham  deftly  so  that  they  sent  a  puff  of  blue  savory  smoke 
up  to  her  face.  "  Don't  th'  ham  smell  good,  ye  spalpeens, 
fresh  from  runnin'  th'  hills?  Go  an'  wash  ye'r  faces  an' 
hands  and  call  ye'r  father  an'  brothers.  I've  four,"  she 
added  proudly  to  the  man  by  the  table  watching  her  with 
horrified  eyes. 

The  fumes  of  the  cooking  made  him  sick,  the  close 
air  suffocated  him.  He  felt  as  though  he  were  in  some 
oppressive  nightmare,  and  the  talk  at  the  supper-table 
penetrated  but  dully  to  his  mind.  The  cordiality  of 
Moira's  husband,  the  shy,  curious  looks  of  the  children  at 
his  pipes,  even  Moira's  face  rosy  from  brow  to  rounded 
chin,  and  beaming  with  indulgent,  affectionate  interest  all 
melted  together  into  a  sort  of  indistinguishable  confu 
sion.  This  dull  distress  was  rendered  acute  anguish  by 
Moira's  talk.  In  that  hot,  indoor  place,  with  all  those 
ignorant  blank  faces  about  her,  she  spoke  of  the  pines 


3i8  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

and  the  upland  bogs,  of  the  fog  and  the  Round  Stone,  and 
desecrated  a  sacred  thing  with  every  word. 

It  would  have  been  a  comfort  to  him  if  she  had  even 
talked  with  an  apostate's  yearning  bitterness  for  his  be 
trayed  religion,  if  she  had  spoken  harshly  of  their  old, 
sweet  folly;  but  she  was  all  kindness  and  eager,  willing 
reminiscence.  Just  as  she  spoke  his  name,  his  faery 
name  of  "  Piper  Tim,"  in  a  tone  that  made  it  worse  than 
"  Uncle  Tim,"  so  she  blighted  one  after  another  of 
the  old  memories  as  she  held  them  up  in  her  firm,  as 
sured  hands,  and  laughed  gently  at  their  oddity. 

After  supper  as  Tim  sat  again  in  the  kitchen  watching 
her  do  the  evening  work,  the  tides  of  revulsion  rose  strong 
within  him.  "  We  were  a  queer  lot,  an'  no  mistake, 
Piper  Tim,"  she  said,  scraping  at  a  frying  pan  with  a 
vigorous  knife.  "  An'  the  childer  are  just  like  us.  I've 
thried  to  tell  them  some  of  our  old  tales,  but — I  dun'no'- 
they've  kind  o'  gone  from  me,  now  I've  such  a  lot  to  do. 
I  suppose  you  were  up  to  the  same  always,  with  your 
nephews  an'  nieces  out  West.  'Twas  fine  for  ye  to  have  a 
family  of  your  own  that  way,  you  that  was  always  so 
lonely  like." 

Timothy's  shuddering  horror  of  protest  rose  into  words 
at  this,  incoherent  words  and  bursts  of  indignation  that 
took  his  breath  away  in  gasps.  "  Moira !  Moira!  What 
are  ye  sayin'  to  me?  Me  wid  a  family!  Anyone  who's 
iver  had  th'  quiet  to  listen  to  th'  blessed  little  people 
—him  to  fill  up  his  ears  wid  th'  clatter  of  mortial  tongues. 
No!  Since  I  lift  here  I've  had  no  minute  o'  peace — oh, 
Moira,  th'  country  there — th'  great  flat  hidjious  country 
of  thim— an'  th'  people  like  it— flat  an'  fruitful.  An'  oh, 
Moira,  aroon,  it's  my  heart  breakin'  in  me,  that  now 


PIPER  TIM  319 

I've  worked  an'  worked  there  and  done  my  mortial  task 
an'  had  my  purgatory  before  my  time,  an'  I've  come  back 
to  live  again — that  ye've  no  single  welcomin'  word  to  bid 
me  stay." 

The  loving  Irish  heart  of  the  woman  melted  in  a  mis 
understanding  sympathy  and  remorse.  "Why,  poor 
Piper  Tim,  I  didn't  mean  ye  should  go  back  to  them  or 
their  country  if  ye  like  it  better  here.  Ye're  welcome 
every  day  of  the  year  from  now  till  judgment  trump.  I 
only  meant — why — seein'  they  were  your  own  folks — and 
all,  that  ye'd  sort  o'  taken  to  thim — the  way  most  do, 
when  it's  their  own  blood." 

She  flowed  on  in  a  stream  of  fumbling,  warm-hearted, 
mistaken  apology  that  sickened  the  old  man's  soul.  When 
he  finally  rose  for  his  great  adventure,  he  spoke  timidly, 
with  a  wretched  foreknowledge  of  what  her  answer 
would  be. 

"  Och,  Piper  Tim,  'tis  real  sweet  of  ye  to  think  of  it 
and  ask  me,  an'  I'd  like  fine  to  go.  Sure,  I've  not  been  on 
the  Round  Stone  of  an  evening — why,  not  since  you  went 
away  I  do  believe!  But  Ralph's  goin'  to  the  grange 
meetin'  to-night,  an'  one  of  th'  childer  is  restless  with  a 
cough,  and  I  think  I'll  not  go.  My  feet  get  sort  of  sore- 
like,  too,  after  bein'  on  them  all  day." 

V 

As  he  stepped  out  froln  the  warm,  brightly  lighted 
room,  the  night  seemed  chill  and  black,  but  after  a  mo 
ment  his  eyes  dilated  and  he  saw  the  stars  shining 
through  the  densely  hanging  maple  leaves. 

Up  by  the  Round  Stone  the  valley  opened  out  beneath 


320  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

him.  Restlessly  he  looked  up  and  down  the  road  and 
across  the  valley  with  a  questing  glance  which  did  not 
show  him  what  he  sought.  The  night  for  all  its  dark 
corners  had  nothing  in  it  for  him  beyond  what  lay  openly 
before  him.  He  put  out  his  hand  instinctively  for  his 
pipes,  remembered  that  he  had  left  them  at  the  house, 
and  sprang  to  his  feet  to  return  for  them.  Perhaps  Moira 
would  come  out  with  him  now.  Perhaps  the  child  had 
gone  to  sleep.  The  brief  stay  in  the  ample  twilight  of 
the  hillside  had  given  him  a  faint,  momentary  courage 
to  appeal  again  to  her  against  the  narrow  brightness  of 
her  prison. 

Moira  sat  by  the  kitchen  table,  sewing,  her  smooth 
round  face  blooming  like  a  rose  in  the  light  from  the 
open  door  of  the  stove.  Her  kindly  eyes  beamed  sweetly 
on  the  old  man.  "  Ah,  Piper  Tim,  ye're  wise.  Tis  a 
damp  night  out  for  ye'r  rheumatis.  The  fog  risin'  too, 
likely?" 

The  old  piper  went  to  her  chair  and  stood  looking  at 
her  with  a  fixed  gaze,  "  Moira !  "  he  said  vehemently, 
"  Moira  O'Donnell  that  was,  the  stars  are  bright  over  the 
Round  Stone,  an'  th'  moon  is  risin'  behind  th'  Hill  o'  De 
lights,  and  the  first  white  puffs  of  incense  are  risin'  from 
th'  whirl-hole  of  th'  river.  I've  come  back  for  my  pipes, 
and  I'm  goin'  out  to  play  to  th'  little  people — an'  oh,  shall 
old  Piper  Tim  go  without  Moira?" 

He  spoke  with  a  glowing  fervor  like  the  leaping  up 
of  a  dying  candle.  From  the  inexorably  kind  woman 
who  smiled  so  friendly  on  him  his  heart  recoiled  and 
puffed  itself  out  into  darkness.  She  surveyed  him  with 
the  wise,  tender  pity  of  a  mother  for  a  foolish,  much- 
loved  child.  "  Sure,  'tis  th'  same  Piper  Tim  ye  are ! " 


PIPER  TIM  321 

she  said  cheerfully,  laying  down  her  work,  "  but,  Lord 
save  ye,  Timmy  darlint,  Moira's  grown  up!  There's  no 
need  for  my  pretendin'  to  play  any  more,  is  there,  when 
Fve  got  proper  childer  o'  my  own  to  keep  it  up.  They 
are  my  little  people — an'  I  don't  have  to  have  a  quiet 
place  to  fancy  them  up  out  o'  nothin'.  They're  real !  An' 
they're  takin'  my  place  all  over  again.  There's  one — the 
youngest  girl — the  one  that  looks  so  like  me  as  ye  noticed 
—she's  just  such  a  one  as  I  was.  To-day  only  (she's 
seven  to-morrow),  she  minded  me  of  some  old  tales  I 
had  told  her  about  the  cruachan  whistle  for  the  sidhe  on 
the  seventh  birthday,  an'  she'd  been  tryin'  to  make  one, 
but  I'd  clean  forgot  how  the  criss-cross  lines  go.  It  made 
me  think  back  on  that  evening  when  I  was  seven — maybe 
you've  forgot,  but  you  was  sittin'  on  the  Round  Stone  in 
th' " 

Timothy's  sore  heart  rebelled  at  this  last  rifling  of  the 
shrine,  and  he  made  for  the  door.  Moira's  sweet  solici 
tude  held  him  for  an  instant  in  check.  "  Oh,  Tim,  ye'd 
best  stay  in  an'  warm  your  knee  by  the  good  fire.  I've  a 
pile  of  mendin'  to  do,  and  you'll  tell  me  all  about  your 
family  in  th'  West  and  how  you  farmed  there.  It'll  be 
real  cozy-like." 

Timothy  uttered  an  outraged  sound  and  snatch 
ing  up  his  pipes  fled  out  of  the  pleasant,  low-ceilinged 
room,  up  the  road,  now  white  as  chalk  beneath  the  newly 
risen  moon.  At  the  Round  Stone  he  sat  down  and, 
putting  his  pipes  to  his  lips,  he  played  resolutely  through 
to  the  end  "  The  Song  of  Angus  to  the  Stars."  As  the 
last,  high,  confident  note  died,  he  put  his  pipes  down 
hastily,  and  dropped  his  face  in  his  hands  with  a  broken 
murmur  of  Gaelic  lament. 


322  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

When  he  looked  abroad  again,  the  valley  was  like  a 
great  opal,  where  the  moon  shot  its  rays  into  the  trans 
parent  fog  far  below  him.  The  road  was  white  and  the 
shadows  black  and  one  was  no  more  devoid  of  mystery 
than  the  other. 

The  sky  for  all  its  stars  hung  above  the  valley  like  an 
empty  bowl  above  an  empty  vessel,  and  in  his  heart  he 
felt  no  swelling  possibilities  to  fill  this  void.  To  the  hag 
gard  old  eyes  the  face  of  the  world  was  like  a  dead  thing, 
which  did  not  return  his  gaze  even  with  hostility,  but 
blankly — a  smooth,  thin  mask  which  hid  behind  it  noth 
ing  at  all. 

He  was  startled  by  the  sudden  appearance  of  a  dog 
from  out  of  the  shadows,  a  shaggy  collie  who  trotted 
briskly  down  the  road,  stopping  to  roll  a  friendly,  inquir 
ing  eye  on  his  bent  figure.  His  eyes  followed  the  animal 
until  it  vanished  in  the  shadows  on  the  other  side.  After 
the  sound  of  its  padding  footsteps  was  still,  the  old  man's 
heart  died  within  him  at  the  silence. 

He  tried  vainly  to  exorcise  this  anguish  by  naming  it. 
What  was  it  ?  Why  did  he  droop  dully  now  that  he  was 
where  he  had  so  longed  to  be  ?  Everything  was  as  it  had 
been,  the  valley,  the  clean  white  fog,  tossing  its  waves  up 
to  him  as  he  had  dreamed  of  it  in  the  arid  days  of  Ne 
braska;  the  mountains  closing  in  on  him  with  the  line  of 
drooping  peace  he  had  never  lost  from  before  his  eyes 
during  the  long,  dreary  years  of  exile.  Only  he  was 
changed.  His  eye  fell  on  his  mud-caked  boots,  and  his 
face  contracted.  "  Oh,  my !  Oh,  my ! "  he  said 
aloud,  like  an  anxious  old  child.  "  She  couldn't  ha' 
liked  my  tracking  bog  durt  on  to  her  clane  kitchen 
floor!" 


PIPER  TIM  323 

But  as  he  sat  brooding,  his  hand  dropped  heavily  to 
the  Round  Stone  and  encountered  a  small  object  which  he 
held  up  to  view.  It  was  a  willow  whistle  of  curious  con 
struction,  with  white  lines  criss-cross  on  it;  and  beside  it 
lay  a  jackknife  with  a  broken  blade.  The  old  man  looked 
at  it,  absently  at  first,  then  with  a  start,  and  finally  with 
a  rush  of  joyful  and  exultant  exclamations. 

And  afterward,  quite  tranquilly,  with  a  shining  face 
of  peace,  he  played  softly  on  his  pipes,  "  The  Call  of 
the  Sidhe  to  the  Children." 


A. 

m 


ADESTE  FIDELES! 


THE  persuasive  agent  sought  old  Miss  Abigail  out 
among  her  flower-beds  and  held  up  to  her  a  tiny  chair 
with  roses  painted  on  the  back.  "  I  was  told  to  see  you 
about  these.  They're  only  four  dollars  a"  dozen,  and  the 
smallest  school  children  love  'em."  Miss  Abigail  straight 
ened  herself  with  difficulty.  She  had  been  weeding  the 
gladiolus  bed.  "  Four  dollars,"  she  mused,  "  I  was  go 
ing  to  put  four  dollars  into  rose-bushes  this  fall/'  She  put 
out  a  strong,  earth-stained  old  hand  and  took  the  chair. 
Her  affection  for  her  native  Green  ford  began  to  rise 
through  her  life-long  thrift,  a  mental  ferment  not  unusual 
with  her.  Finally,  "All  right,"  she  said;  "send  'em  to 
the  schoolhouse,  and  say  they're  in  memory  of  all  my 
grandfathers  and  grandmothers  that  learned  their  letters 
in  that  schoolhouse." 

She  went  back  to  her  digging  and  the  agent  clicked  the 
gate  back  of  his  retreat.  Suddenly  she  stood  up  without 
remembering  to  ease  her  back.  She  heard  the  first  shot 
from  the  enemy  who  was  to  advance  so  rapidly  upon  her 
thereafter.  "  Wait  a  minute,"  she  called  to  the  agent. 
As  he  paused,  she  made  a  swift  calculation.  "I  don't 
believe  I  want  a  dozen,"  she  said,  much  surprised.  "  I 
can't  think  of  that  many  little  ones."  The  agent  took 
out  his  notebook.  "  How  many  ?  "  he  asked. 

The  ponderous  old  woman  stared  at  him  absently  while 

325 


326  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

she  made  a  mental  canvass  of  the  town.  She  spoke  with 
a  gasp.  "  We  don't  need  any !  "  she  cried.  "  There  ain't 
a  child  in  school  under  eleven." 

1  Take  some  now  and  have  them  handy,"  urged  the 
agent. 

Miss  Abigail's  gaze  again  narrowed  in  silent  calcula 
tion.  When  she  spoke  her  exclamation  was  not  for  her 
listener.  She  had  forgotten  him.  "Good  Lord  of 
Love !  "  she  cried.  "  There  ain't  a  single  one  comin'  up 
to  sit  on  those  chairs  if  I  should  buy  'em !  " 

The  agent  was  utterly  blotted  from  her  mind.  She 
did  not  know  when  he  left  her  garden.  She  only  knew 
that  there  were  no  children  in^  Green  ford.  There  were 
no  children  in  her  town !  "  Why,  what's  comin'  to  Green- 
ford  !  "  she  cried. 

And  yet,  even  as  she  cried  out,  she  was  aware  that 
she  had  had  a  warning,  definite,  ominous,  a  few  days  be 
fore,  from  the  lips  of  Molly  Leonard.  At  that  time  she 
had  put  away  her  startled  uneasiness  with  a  masterful 
hand,  burying  it  resolutely  where  she  had  laid  away 
all  the  other  emotions  of  her  life,  under  the  brown 
loam  of  her  garden.  But  it  all  came  back  to  her 
now. 

Her  thin,  fluttering,  little  old  friend  had  begun  with 
tragic  emphasis,  "  The  roof  to  the  library  leaks !  " 

Miss  Abigail  had  laughed  as  usual  at  Molly's  habit  of 
taking  small  events  with  bated  breath.  "What  of  it?" 
she  asked.  "  That  roof  never  was  good,  even  back  in  the 
days  when  'twas  a  private  house  and  my  great-uncle 
lived  in  it." 

Miss  Molly  fluttered  still  more  before  the  awfulness 
of  her  next  announcement. 


ADESTE  FIDELES!  327 

"  Well,  the  talk  is  that  the  town  won't  vote  a  cent  to 
ward  repairs." 

"  They'll  have  to !  You  can't  get  along  without  a  li 
brary!" 

"  No,  they  won't.  The  talk  is  that  the  men  won't  vote 
to  have  the  town  give  a  bit  of  money  for  shingles.  No, 
nor  to  pay  somebody  to  take  the  place  of  Ellen  Monroe 
as  librarian.  She's  got  work  in  the  print  mill  at  John- 
sonville  and  is  going  to  move  down  there  to  be  near  her 
brother's  family." 

"  Oh,  talk!"  said  Miss  Abigail  with  the  easy  contempt 
she  had  for  things  outside  her  garden  hedge.  "  Haven't 
you  heard  men  talk  before?" 

"  But  they  say  really  they  won't!  They  say  nobody 
ever  goes  into  it  any  more  when  the  summer  folks  go 
away  in  the  autumn." 

Miss  Abigail's  gesture  indicated  that  the  thing  was  un 
thinkable.  "  What's  the  matter  with  young  folks  nowa 
days,  anyhow  ?  They  always  used  to  run  there  and  chat 
ter  till  you  couldn't  hear  yourself  think." 

Miss  Molly  lowered  her  voice  like  a  person  coming  to 
the  frightening  climax  of  a  ghost  story.  "  Miss  Abigail, 
they  ain't  any  young  folks  here  any  more !  " 

"  What  do  you  call  the  Pitkin  girls !  "  demanded  the 
other. 

"  They  were  the  very  last  ones  and  they  and  their 
mother  have  decided  they'll  move  to  Johnsonville  this 
fall." 

Miss  Abigail  cried  out  in  energetic  disapproval,  "  What 
in  the  Lord's  world  are  the  Pitkinses  going  to  move  away 
from  Greenford  for!  They  belong  here!  " 

Miss  Molly  marshaled  the  reasons  with  a  sad  swift- 


328  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

ness,  "  There  aren't  any  music  pupils  left  for  the  oldest 
one,  the  two  next  have  got  positions  in  the  print  mills, 
and  little  Sarah  is  too  old  for  the  school  here  any  more." 

Miss  Abigail  shook  her  head  impatiently  as  though  to 
brush  away  a  troublesome  gnat.  "  How  about  the  Leav- 
itts  ?  There  ought  to  be  enough  young  ones  in  that  one 
family  to— 

"  They  moved  to  Johnsonville  last  week,  going  to  rent 
their  house  to  city  folks  in  the  summer,  the  way  all  the 
rest  here  in  the  street  do.  They  didn't  want  to  go  a  bit. 
Eliza  felt  dreadful  about  it,  but  what  can  they  do?  Ezra 
hasn't  had  enough  carpentering  to  do  in  the  last  six 
months  to  pay  their  grocery  bill,  and  down  in  Johnson 
ville  they  can't  get  carpenters  enough.  Besides,  all  the 
children's  friends  are  there,  and  they  got  so  lonesome 
here  winters." 

Miss  Abigail  quailed  a  little,  but  rallying,  she  brought 
out,  "  What's  the  matter  with  the  Bennetts  ?  The  whole 
kit  and  b'iling  of  them  came  in  here  the  other  day  to 
pester  me  asking  about  how  I  grew  my  lilies." 

"  Why,  Miss  Abigail !  You  don't  pay  any  more  atten 
tion  to  village  news !  They've  been  working  in  the  mills 
for  two  years  now,  and  only  come  home  for  two  weeks 
in  the  summer  like  everybody  else." 

The  old  woman  stirred  her  weighty  person  wrath  fully. 
"  Like  everybody  else !  Molly,  you  talk  like  a  fool !  As 
if  there  was  nobody  lived  here  all  the  year  around ! " 

"  But  it's  so!  I  don't  know  what's  coming  to  Green- 
ford!" 

An  imperative  gesture  from  the  older  woman  cut  her 
short.  "  Don't  chatter  so,  Molly !  If  it's  true,  that  about 
the  library,  we've  got  to  do  something !  " 


ADESTE  FIDELES!  329 

The  interview  had  ended  in  an  agreement  from  her, 
after  a  struggle  with  the  two  passions  of  her  life,  to  give 
up  the  tulip  bulbs  for  which  she  had  been  saving  so 
long,  and  spend  the  money  for  repairing  the  roof.  Miss 
Molly,  having  no  money  to  give,  since  she  was  already 
much  poorer  than  she  could  possibly  be  and  live,  agreed, 
according  to  Miss  Abigail's  peremptory  suggestion,  to 
give  her  time,  and  keep  the  library  open  at  least  during 
the  afternoons. 

1  You  can  do  it,  Molly,  as  well  as  not,  for  you  don't 
seem  to  have  half  the  sewing  you  used  to." 

'  There's  nobody  here  any  more  to  sew  for "  began 

the  seamstress  despairingly,  but  Miss  Abigail  would  not 
listen,  bundling  her  out  of  the  garden  gate  and  sending 
her  trotting  home,  cheered  unreasonably  by  the  old 
woman's  jovial  blustering,  "  No  such  kind  of  talk  allowed 
in  my  garden !  " 

But  now,  after  the  second  warning,  Miss  Abigail  felt 
the  need  of  some  cheer  for  herself  as  she  toiled  among 
the  hollyhocks  and  larkspurs.  She  would  not  let  her 
self  think  of  the  significance  of  the  visit  of  the 
agent  for  the  chairs,  and  she  could  not  force  her 
self  to  think  of  anything  else.  For  several  wretched 
weeks  she  hung  in  this  limbo.  Then,  one  morning 
as  she  stood  gazing  at  her  Speciosums  Rubrums  with 
out  seeing  them,  she  received  her  summons  to  the  front. 
She  had  a  call  from  her  neighbor,  Mr.  Edward  Horton, 
whom  the  rest  of  the  world  knows  as  a  sculptor,  but 
whom  Miss  Abigail  esteemed  only  because  of  his  ortho 
dox  ideas  on  rose  culture.  He  came  in  to  ask  some  in 
formation  about  a  blight  on  his  Red  Ramblers,  although 
after  Miss  Abigail  had  finished  her  strong  recommenda- 


330  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

tion  to  use  whale  oil  soap  sprayed,  and  not  hellebore,  he 
still  lingered,  crushing  a  leaf  of  lemon  verbena  between 
his  fingers  and  sniffing  the  resultant  perfume  with 
thoughtful  appreciation.  He  was  almost  as  enthusiastic 
a  horticulturist  as  Miss  Abigail,  and  stood  high  in  her 
good  graces  as  one  of  the  few  individuals  of  sense  among 
the  summer  colony.  She  faced  him  therefore  in  a  peace 
able,  friendly  mood,  glad  of  the  diversion  from  her 
thoughts,  and  quite  unprepared  for  the  shock  he  was 
about  to  give  her. 

"  I'm  on  my  way  to  interview  the  trustees  of  the 
church,"  he  remarked.  "  It  is  curious  that  all  but  one 
of  them  now  really  live  in  Johnsonville,  although  they 
still  keep  their  nominal  residence  here." 

"  What  do  you  want  to  see  them  for  ?  "  asked  Miss 
Abigail,,  with  a  bluntness  caused  in  part  by  her  wincing 
at  his  casual  statement  of  an  unwelcome  fact. 

"  Why,  I've  had  what  I  flatter  myself  is  an  inspira 
tion  for  everyone  concerned.  I've  got  a  big  commission 
for  part  of  the  decorations  of  the  new  State  House  in 
Montana,  and  I  need  a  very  large  studio.  It  occurred  to 
me  the  other  day  that  instead  of  building  I'd  save  time 
by  buying  the  old  church  here  and  using  that." 

Miss  Abigail  leaned  against  the  palings.  "Buy  our 
church! "  she  said,  and  every  letter  was  a  capital. 

"  I  didn't  know  you  were  a  member,"  said  the  sculptor, 
a  little  surprised.  "  You  don't  often  go." 

Miss  Abigail  shouted  out,  "  Why,  my  grandfather  was 
minister  in  that  church !  "  Mr.  Horton  received  this  as 
a  statement  of  fact.  "  Indeed  ?  I  didn't  realize  the  build 
ing  was  so  old.  I  wonder  if  the  foundations  are  still  in 
good  shape."  He  went  on,  explanatorily,  "  I  really  don't 


ADESTE  FIDELES!  331 

know  why  I  hadn't  thought  of  the  plan  before.  The  num 
ber  who  attend  church  in  that  great  barn  of  a  place  could 
easily  be  put  into  someone's  parlor,  and  save  the  trustees 
the  expense  of  heating.  One  of  them  whom  I  saw  the 
other  day  seemed  quite  pleased  with  the  notion — said 
they'd  been  at  a  loss  to  know  what  to  do  about  conditions 
here."  He  glanced  at  his  watch.  "  Well,  I  must  be  go 
ing  or  I  shall  miss  the  train  to  Johnsonville.  Thank  you 
very  much  for  the  hint  about  the  blight." 

He  went  down  the  street,  humming  a  cheerful  little 
tune. 

To  Miss  Abigail  it  was  the  bugle  call  of  "  Forward, 
charge ! "  She  had  been,  for  the  last  few  weeks,  a  little 
paler  than  usual.  Now  her  powerful  old  face  flushed  to 
an  angry  red.  She  dashed  her  trowel  to  the  garden  path 
and  clenched  her  fists.  "  What's  coming  to  Greenford!  " 
she  shouted.  It  was  no  longer  a  wail  of  despair.  It  was 
a  battle-cry  of  defiance. 

II 

She  had  no  time  to  organize  a  campaign,  forced  as 
she  was  to  begin  fighting  at  once.  Reaching  wildly  for 
any  weapon  at  hand,  she  rushed  to  the  front,  as  grim- 
visaged  a  warrior  as  ever  frightened  a  peaceable,  shift 
less  non-combatant.  "  Joel  Barney !  "  she  cried,  storm 
ing  up  his  front  steps.  "  You're  a  trustee  of  the  church, 
aren't  you?  Well,  if  you  don't  vote  against  selling  the 
church,  I'll  foreclose  the  mortgage  on  your  house  so  quick 
you  can't  wink.  And  you  tell  'Lias  Bennett  that  if  he 
doesn't  do  the  same,  I'll  pile  manure  all  over  that  field 
of  mine  near  his  place,  and  stink  out  his  summer  renters 
so  they'll  never  set  foot  here  again." 


332  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

She  shifted  tactics  as  she  encountered  different  ad 
versaries  and  tried  no  blackmail  on  stubborn  Miles  Ben- 
ton,  whom  she  took  pains  to  see  the  next  time  he  came 
back  to  Greenford  for  a  visit.  Him  she  hailed  as  the 
Native-Born.  "  How  would  you  like  to  have  brazen 
models  and  nasty  statues  made  in  the  building  where 
your  own  folks  have  always  gone  to  church  ?  " 

But  when  the  skirmish  was  over,  she  realized  ruefully 
that  the  argument  which  had  brought  her  her  hard-won 
victory  had  been  the  one  which,  for  a  person  of  such 
very  moderate  means  as  hers,  reflected  the  least  hope  for 
future  battles.  At  the  last,  in  desperation,  she  had  guar 
anteed  in  the  name  of  the  Ladies'  Aid  Society  that  the 
church,  except  for  the  minister's  salary,  should  thereafter 
be  no  expense  to  the  trustees.  She  had  invented  that 
source  of  authority,  remembering  that  Molly  Leonard 
had  said  she  belonged  to  the  Ladies'  Aid  Society,  "  and 
I  can  make  Molly  do  anything,"  she  thought,  trusting 
Providence  for  the  management  of  the  others. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  when  she  came  to  investigate  the 
matter,  she  found  that  Molly  was  now  the  sole  remaining 
member.  Her  dismay  was  acute,  Molly's  finances  being 
only  too  well  known  to  her,  but  she  rallied  bravely. 
'  They  don't  do  much  to  a  church  that  costs  money," 
she  thought,  and,  when  Molly  went  away,  she  made 
out  her  budget  unflinchingly.  Wood  for  the  furnace, 
kerosene  for  the  lamps,  wages  to  the  janitor,  repairs 

when  needed "  Well,  Abigail  Warner,"  she  told 

herself,  "it  means  nothing  new  bought  for  the  garden, 
and  no  new  microscope — the  roof  to  the  library  costing 
more  than  they  said  'twould  and  all." 

But  the  joy  of  triumphant  battle  was  still  swelling  her 


ADESTE  FIDELES!  333 

doughty  old  heart,  so  that  even  these  considerations  did 
not  damp  her  exultation  over  her  artist  neighbor  the  next 
time  he  came  to  see  her.  He  listened  to  her  boasting 
with  his  pleasant,  philosophic  smile,  and,  when  she  fin 
ished,  delivered  himself  of  a  quiet  little  disquisition  on 
the  nature  of  things  which  was  like  ice-water  in  the 
face  of  the  hot-blooded  old  fighter. 

"  My  dear  Miss  Abigail,  your  zeal  does  your  heart 
credit,  and  your  management  of  the  trustees  proves  you 
an  unsuspected  diplomat;  but  as  a  friend,  and,  be 
lieve  me,  a  disinterested  friend,  let  me  warn  you  that 
you  are  contending  against  irresistible  forces.  You  can 
no  more  resuscitate  your  old  Greenford  than  you  can 
any  other  dead  body.  You  have  kept  the  church 
from  my  clutches,  it  is  true,  though  for  that  matter  I 
wouldn't  have  offered  to  buy  it  if  I  hadn't  thought  no 
one  cared  about  it — but  what  do  you  mean  to  do  with  it 
now  you  have  it  ?  You  cannot  bring  back  the  old  Green- 
ford  families  from  their  well-paid  work  in  Johnsonville 
to  sit  in  those  rescued  pews,  or  read  in  your  deserted 
library,  or  send  their  children  to  your  empty  school- 
house.  You  tell  me  they  are  loyal  to  their  old  home,  and 
love  to  come  back  here  for  visits.  Is  that  strange? 
Greenford  is  a  charming  village  set  in  the  midst  of  beau 
tiful  mountains,  and  Johnsonville  is  a  raw  factory  town 
in  a  plain.  But  they  cannot  live  on  picturesque  scenery  or 
old  associations.  The  laws  of  economics  are  like  all 
other  laws  of  nature,  inevitable  in  their  action  and 
irresistible  in " 

Miss  Abigail  gave  the  grampus  snort  which  had  been 
her  great-grandfather's  war-cry.  "Hoo!  You're  like 
all  other  book  folks!  You  give  things  such  long  names 


334  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

you  scare  yourselves !  I  haven't  got  anything  to  do  with 
economics,  nor  it  with  me.  It's  a  plain  question  as  to 
whether  the  church  my  ancestors  built  and  worshipped 
in  is  to  be  sold.  There's  nothing  so  inevitable  in 
that,  let  me  tell  you.  Laws  of  nature— fiddlesticks ! 
How  about  the  law  of  gravity?  Don't  I  break  that 
every  time  I  get  up  gumption  enough  to  raise  my  hand 

to  my  head !  " 

Mr.  Horton  looked  at  the  belligerent  old  woman  with 
the  kindest  smile  of  comprehension.  "  Ah,  I  know  how 
hard  it  is  for  you.  In  another  way  I  have  been  through 
the  same  bitter  experience.  My  home,  my  real  home, 
where  my  own  people  are,  is  out  in  a  wind-swept  little 
town  on  the  Nebraska  prairies.  But  I  cannot  live  there 
because  it  is  too  far  from  my  world  of  artists  and  art 
patrons.  I  tried  it  once,  but  the  laws  of  supply  and  de 
mand  work  for  all  alike.  I  gave  it  up.  Here  I  am,  you 
see.  You  can't  help  such  things.  You'd  better  follow 
on 'to  Johnsonville  now  and  not  embitter  the  last  of  your 
life  with  a  hopeless  struggle." 

Miss  Abigail  fairly  shouted  at  him  her  repudiation  of 
his  ideas.  "Not  while  there  is  a  breath  in  me!  My 
folks  were  all  soldiers." 

"But     even     soldiers     surrender     to     overpowering 

forces." 

"  Hoo !  Hoo !  How  do  they  know  they're  overpower 
ing  till  they're  overpowered!  How  do  they  dare  sur 
render  till  they're  dead !  How  do  they  know  that  if  they 
hold  out  just  a  little  longer  they  won't  get  reenforce- 

ments!" 

Mr.  Horton  was  a  little  impatient  of  his  old 
unreason.     "  My  dear  Miss  Abigail,  you  have  brains. 


ADESTE  FIDELES!  335 

Use  them!  What  possible  reinforcements  can  you  ex 
pect?" 

The  old  woman  opposed  to  his  arguments  nothing  but 
a  passionately  bare  denial.  "  No !  No !  No !  We're 
different !  It's  in  your  blood  to  give  up  because  you  can 
reason  it  all  out  that  you're  beaten."  She  stood  up, 
shaking  with  her  vehemence.  "  It's  in  my  blood  to  fight 
and  fight  and  fight " 

"  And  then  what  ?  "  asked  the  sculptor,  as  she  hesi 
tated. 

"Go  on  fighting!  "  she  cried. 


Ill 

She  was  seventy-one  years  old  when  she  first  flew  this 
flag,  and  for  the  next  four  years  she  battled  unceasingly 
under  its  bold  motto  against  odds  that  rapidly  grew  more 
overwhelming  as  the  process  that  had  been  imperceptibly 
draining  Greenford  of  its  population  gained  impetus  with 
it  own  action.  In  the  beginning  people  moved  to  John- 
sonville  because  they  could  get  work  in  the  print  mill, 
but  after  a  time  they  went  because  the  others  had  gone. 
Before  long  there  was  no  cobbler  in  Greenford  because 
there  was  so  little  cobbling  to  do.  After  that  the  butcher 
went  away,  then  the  carpenter,  and  finally  the  grocery- 
store  was  shut  up  and  deserted  by  the  man  whose  father 
and  grandfather  had  kept  store  in  the  same  building  for 
sixty  years.  It  was  the  old  story.  He  had  a  large  family 
of  children  who  needed  education  and  "  a  chance." 

The  well-kept  old  village  still  preserved  its  outer  shell 
of  quaintness  and  had  a  constantly  increasing  charm  for 
summering  strangers  who  rejoiced  with  a  shameless  ego- 


336  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

tism  in  the  death-like  quiet  of  the  moribund  place,  and 
pointed  out  to  visiting  friends  from  the  city  the  tufts  of 
grass  beginning  to  grow  in  the  main  street  as  delightful 
proofs  of  the  tranquillity  of  their  summer  retreat. 

Miss  Abigail  overheard  a  conversation  to  this  effect 
one  day  between  some  self-invited  visitors  to  her  won 
derful  garden.  '  Her  heart  burned  and  her  face  blackened. 
"  You  might  as  well,"  she  told  them,  "  laugh  at  the  funny 
faces  of  a  person  who's  choking  to  death !  " 

The  urbane  city  people  turned  amused  and  inquiring 
faces  upon  her.  "How  so?" 

"  Roads  aren't  for  grass  to  grow  in !  "  she  fulminated. 
'  They're  for  folks  to  use,  for  men  and  women  and  little 
children  to  go  over  to  and  from  their  homes." 

"  Ah,  economic  conditions,"  they  began  to  murmur. 
"  The  inevitable  laws  of  supply  and 

"  Get  out  of  my  garden !  "  Miss  Abigail  raged  at 
them.  "Get  out!" 

They  had  scuttled  before  her,  laughing  at  her  quaint 
ferocity,  and  she  had  sworn  wrathfully  never  to  let  an 
other  city  dweller  inside  her  gate — a  resolution  which 
she  was  forced  to  forego  as  time  passed  on  and  she 
became  more  and  more  hard  pressed  for  ammuni 
tion. 

Up  to  this  time  she  had  lived  in  perfect  satisfaction  on 
seven  hundred  dollars  a  year,  but  now  she  began  to  feel 
straitened.  She  no  longer  dared  afford  even  the  tiniest 
expenditure  for  her  garden.  She  spaded  the  beds  her 
self,  drew  leaf  mold  from  the  woods  in  repeated  trips 
with  a  child's  express  wagon,  and  cut  the  poles  for  her 
sweet-peas  with  her  own  hands.  When  Miss  Molly  Leon 
ard  declared  herself  on  the  verge  of  starvation  from  lack 


ADESTE  FIDELES!  337 

of  sewing  to  do,  and  threatened  to  move  to  Johnsonville 
to  be  near  her  sister  Annie,  Miss  Abigail  gave  up  her 
"  help  "  and  paid  Miss  Molly  for  the  time  spent  in  the 
empty  reading-room  of  the  library.  But  the  campaign 
soon  called  for  more  than  economy,  even  the  most  rigid. 
When  the  minister  had  a  call  elsewhere,  and  the  trustees 
of  the  church  seized  the  opportunity  to  declare  it  impos 
sible  to  appoint  his  successor,  Miss  Abigail  sold  her  wood- 
lot  and  arranged  through  the  Home  Missionary  Board 
for  someone  to  hold  services  at  least  once  a  fortnight. 
Later  the  "  big  meadow  "  so  long  coveted  by  a  New  York 
family  as  a  building  site  was  sacrificed  to  fill  the  empty 
war  chest,  and,  temporarily  in  funds,  she  hired  a  boy 
to  drive  her  about  the  country  drumming  up  a  congrega 
tion. 

Christmas  time  was  the  hardest  for  her.  The  tradi 
tions  of  old  Greenford  were  for  much  decorating  of  the 
church  with  ropes  of  hemlock,  and  a  huge  Christmas  tree 
in  the  Town  Hall  with  presents  for  the  best  of  the  Sun 
day-school  scholars.  Winding  the  ropes  had  been,  of 
old,  work  for  the  young  unmarried  people,  laughing  and 
flirting  cheerfully.  By  the  promise  of  a  hot  supper, 
which  she  furnished  herself,  Miss  Abigail  succeeded  in 
getting  a  few  stragglers  from  the  back  hills,  but  the 
number  grew  steadily  smaller  year  by  year.  She  and  Miss 
Molly  always  trimmed  the  Christmas  tree  themselves. 
Indeed,  it  soon  became  a  struggle  to  pick  out  any  child 
a  regular  enough  attendant  at  Sunday-school  to  be  eligible 
for  a  present.  The  time  came  when  Miss  Abigail  found 
it  difficult  to  secure  any  children  at  all  for  the  annual 
Christmas  party. 

The  school  authorities  began  to  murmur  at  keeping  up 


338  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

the  large  old  schoolhouse  for  a  handful  of  pupils.  Miss 
Abigail,  at  her  wit's  end,  guaranteed  the  fuel  for  warm 
ing  the  house,  and  half  the  pay  of  a  teacher.  Examin 
ing,  after  this,  her  shrunk  and  meager  resources,  she  dis 
covered  she  had  promised  far  beyond  her  means.  She 
was  then  seventy-three  years  old,  but  an  ageless  valor 
sprang  up  in  her  to  meet  the  new  emergency.  She  fo 
cused  her  acumen  to  the  burning  point  and  saw  that  the 
only  way  out  of  her  situation  was  to  earn  some  money — 
an  impossible  thing  at  her  age.  Without  an  instant's 
pause,  "  How  shall  I  do  it?"  she  asked  herself,  and  sat 
frowning  into  space  for  a  long  time. 

When  she  rose  up,  the  next  development  in  her 
campaign  was  planned.  Not  in  vain  had  she  listened 
scornfully  to  the  silly  talk  of  city  folks  about  the  pic- 
turesqueness  of  her  old  house  and  garden.  It  was  all 
grist  to  her  mill,  she  perceived,  and  during  the  next  sum 
mer  it  was  a  grimly  amused  old  miller  who  watched  the 
antics  of  Abigail  Warner,  arrayed  in  a  pseudo-old-fash 
ioned  gown  of  green-flowered  muslin,  with  a  quaintly 
ruffled  cap  confining  her  rebellious  white  hair,  talking  the 
most  correct  book-brand  of  down-east  jargon,  and  sell 
ing  flowers  at  twenty  times  their  value  to  automobile  and 
carriage  folk.  She  did  not  mind  sacrificing  her  personal 
dignity,  but  she  did  blush  for  her  garden,  reduced  to  the 
most  obvious  commonplaces  of  flowers  that  any  child 
could  grow.  But  by  September  she  had  saved  the  school 
teacher's  pay,  and  the  Martins  and  the  Aliens,  who  had 
been  wavering  on  account  of  their  children,  decided  to 
stay  another  winter  at  least. 

That  was  something,  Miss  Abigail  thought,  that  Christ 
mas,  as  she  and  Miss  Molly  tortured  their  rheumatic 


ADESTE  FIDELES!  339 

limbs  to  play  games  with  the  six  children  around  the  tree. 
She  had  held  rigorously  to  the  old  tradition  of  having 
the  Christmas  tree  party  in  the  Town  Hall,  and  she  had 
heartened  Miss  Molly  through  the  long  lonely  hours  they 
had  spent  in  trimming  it;  but  as  the  tiny  handful  of  for 
lorn  celebrants  gathered  about  the  tall  tree,  glittering  in 
all  the  tinsel  finery  which  was  left  over  from  the  days 
when  the  big  hall  had  rung  to  the  laughter  of  a  hundred 
children  and  as  many  more  young  people,  even  Miss  Abi 
gail  felt  a  catch  in  her  throat  as  she  quavered  through 
"  King  Willyum  was  King  James's  son !  " 

When  the  games  were  over  and  the  children  sat  about 
soberly,  eating  their  ice-cream  and  cake,  she  looked  over 
her  shoulder  into  the  big  empty  room  and  shivered. 
The  children  went  away  and  she  and  Miss  Molly  put 
out  the  lights  in  silence.  When  they  came  out  into 
the  moonlight  and  looked  up  and  down  the  deserted  street, 
lined  with  darkened  houses,  the  face  of  the  younger 
woman  was  frankly  tear-stained.  "  Oh,  Miss  Abigail," 
she  said;  "  let's  give  it  up!" 

Miss  Abigail  waited  an  instant,  perceptible  instant  be 
fore  answering,  but,  when  she  did,  her  voice  was  full  and 
harsh  with  its  usual  vigor.  "  Fiddlesticks !  You  must 
ha'  been  losing  your  sleep.  Go  tuck  yourself  up  and  get 
a  good  night's  rest  and  you  won't  talk  such  kind  of  talk !  " 

But  she  herself  sat  up  late  into  the  night  with  a  pencil 
and  paper,  figuring  out  sums  that  had  impossible  answers. 

That  March  she  had  a  slight  stroke  of  paralysis,  and 
was  in  an  agony  of  apprehension  lest  she  should  not  re 
cover  enough  to  plant  the  flowers  for  the  summer's  mar 
ket.  By  May,  flatly  against  the  doctor's  orders,  she  was 
dragging  herself  around  the  garden  on  crutches,  and  she 


34o  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

stuck  to  her  post,  smiling  and  making  prearranged  rus 
tic  speeches  all  the  summer.  She  earned  enough  to  pay 
the  school-teacher  another  winter  and  to  buy  the  fuel  for 
the  schoolhouse,  and  again  the  Martins  and  the  Aliens 
stayed  over;  though  they  announced  with  a  callous  in 
difference  to  Miss  Abigail's  ideas  that  they  were  going 
down  to  Johnsonville  at  Christmas  to  visit  their  relatives 
there,  and  have  the  children  go  to  the  tree  the  ex-Green- 
fordites  always  trimmed. 

When  she  heard  this  Miss  Abigail  set  off  to  the  Allen 
farm  on  the  lower  slope  of  Hemlock  Mountain.  :(  Wa'n't 
our  tree  good  enough?"  she  demanded  hotly. 

"The  tree  was  all  right/'  they  answered,  "but  the 
children  were  so  mortal  lonesome.  Little  Katie  Ann 
came  home  crying." 

Miss  Abigail  turned  away  without  answering  and  hob 
bled  off  up  the  road  toward  the  mountain.    Things  were 
black  before  her  eyes  and  in  her  heart  as  she  went  blindly 
forward  where  the  road  led  her.    She  still  fought  off  any 
acknowledgment   of  the  bitterness  that  filled  her,  but 
when  the  road,  after  dwindling  to  a  wood  trail  and  then 
to  a  path,  finally  stopped,  she  sat  down  with  a  great  swell 
ing  breath.     "  Well,  I  guess  this  is  the  end,"  she  said 
aloud,  instantly  thereafter  making  a  pretense  to  herself 
that  she  meant  the  road.     She  looked  about  her  with  a 
brave  show  of  interest  in  the  bare  November  woods 
unroofed  and  open  to  the  sunlight,  and  was  rewarded 
by  a  throb  of   real  interest  to  observe   that   she   was 
where  she  had  not  been  for  forty  years,  when  she  used 
to  clamber  over  the  spur  of  Hemlock  Mountain  to  hunt 
for  lady's-slippers  in  the  marshy  ground  at  the  head  of 
the  gorge.     A  few  steps  more  and  she  would  be  on  her 


ADESTE  FIDELES!  341 

own  property,  a  steep,  rocky  tract  of  brushland  left  her 
by  her  great-uncle.  She  had  a  throb  as  she  realized  that, 
besides  her  house  and  garden,  this  unsalable  bit  of  the 
mountainside  was  her  only  remaining  possession.  She 
had  indeed  come  to  the  end. 

With  the  thought  came  her  old  dogged  defiance  to 
despair.  She  shut  her  hands  on  her  crutches,  pulled  her 
self  heavily  up  to  her  feet,  and  toiled  forward  through 
the  brush.  She  would  not  allow  herself  to  think  if 
thoughts  were  like  that.  Soon  she  came  out  into  a  little 
clearing  beside  the  Winthrop  Branch,  swirling  and  fum 
ing  in  its  headlong  descent.  The  remains  of  a  stone  wall 
and  a  blackened  beam  or  two  showed  her  that  she  had  hit 
upon  the  ruins  of  the  old  sawmill  her  great-grandfather 
had  owned.  This  forgotten  and  abandoned  decay,  a 
symbol  of  the  future  of  the  whole  region,  struck  a  last 
blow  at  the  remnants  of  her  courage.  She  sank  down 
on  the  wall  and  set  herself  to  a  losing  struggle  with  the 
blackness  that  was  closing  in  about  her.  All  her  effort 
had  been  in  vain.  The  fight  was  over.  She  had  not  a 
weapon  left. 

A  last  spark  of  valor  flickered  into  flame  within  her. 
She  stood  up,  lifting  her  head  high,  and  summoning  with 
a  loudly  beating  heart  every  scattered  energy.  She  was 
alive;  her  fight  could  not  be  over  while  she  still  breathed. 

For  an  instant  she  stood,  self-hypnotized  by  the  in 
tensity  of  her  resolution.  Then  there  burst  upon  her  ear, 
as  though  she  had  not  heard  it  before,  the  roar  of  the 
water  rushing  past  her.  It  sounded  like  a  loud  voice 
calling  to  her.  She  shivered  and  turned  a  little  giddy 
as  though  passing  into  a  trance,  and  then,  with  one 
bound,  the  gigantic  forces  of  subconscious  self,  wrought 


342  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

by  her  long  struggle  to  a  white  heat  of  concentration  on 
one  aim,  arose  and  mastered  her.  For  a  time — hours 
perhaps — she  never  knew  how  long,  old  Miss  Abigail  was 
a  genius,  with  the  brain  of  an  engineer  and  the  prophetic 
vision  of  a  seer. 

IV 

The  next  months  were  the  hardest  of  her  life.  The 
long  dreary  battle  against  insurmountable  obstacles  she 
had  been  able  to  bear  with  a  stoical  front,  but  the  sick 
ening  alternations  of  emotions  which  now  filled  her  days 
wore  upon  her  until  she  was  fairly  suffocated.  About 
mail  time  each  day  she  became  of  an  unendurable  irrita 
bility,  so  that  poor  Miss  Molly  was  quite  afraid  to  go 
near  her.  For  the  first  time  in  her  life  there  was  no 
living  thing  growing  in  her  house. 

"  Don't  you  mean  to  have  any  service  this  Christmas?  " 
asked  Miss  Molly  one  day. 

Miss  Abigail  shouted  at  her  so  fiercely  that  she  re 
treated  in  a  panic.  "  Why  not  ?  Why  shouldn't  we  ? 
What  makes  you  think  such  a  thing?" 

t(  Why,  I  didn't  know  of  anybody  to  go  but  just  you 
and  me,  and  I  noticed  that  you  hadn't  any  flowers  started 
for  decorations  the  way  you  always  do." 

Miss  Abigail  flamed  and  fulminated  as  though  her 
timid  little  friend  had  offered  her  an  insult.  "  I've  been 
to  service  in  that  church  every  Christmas  since  I  was 
born  and  I  shall  till  I  die.  And  as  for  my  not  growing 
any  flowers,  that's  my  business,  ain't  it !  "  Her  voice 
cracked  under  the  outraged  emphasis  she  put  on  it. 

Her  companion  fled  away  without  a  word,  and  Miss 
Abigail  sank  into  a  chair  trembling.  It  came  over  her 


ADESTE  FIDELES!  343 

with  a  shock  that  her  preoccupation  had  been  so  great 
that  she  had  forgotten  about  her  winter  flowers. 

The  fortnight  before  Christmas  was  interminable  to 
her.  Every  morning  she  broke  a  hobbling  path  through 
the  snow  to  the  post-office,  where  she  waited  with  a  hag 
gard  face  for  the  postmaster's  verdict  of  "  nothing."  The 
rest  of  the  day  she  wandered  desolately  about  her  house, 
from  one  window  to  another,  always  staring,  staring  up 
at  Hemlock  Mountain. 

She  disposed  of  the  problem  of  the  Christmas  service 
with  the  absent  competence  of  a  person  engrossed  in 
greater  matters.  Miss  Molly  had  declared  it  impossible 
— there  was  no  money  for  a  minister,  there  was  no  con 
gregation,  there  was  no  fuel  for  the  furnace.  Miss  Abi 
gail  wrote  so  urgently  to  the  Theological  Seminary  of  the 
next  State  that  they  promised  one  of  their  seniors  for 
the  service;  and  she  loaded  a  hand  sled  with  wood  from 
her  own  woodshed  and,  harnessing  herself  and  Miss 
Molly  to  it,  drew  it  with  painful  difficulty  through  the 
empty  village  street.  There  was  not  enough  of  this  fuel 
to  fill  even  once  the  great  furnace  in  the  cellar,  so  she 
decreed  that  the  service  should  be  in  the  vestibule  where 
a  stove  stood.  The  last  few  days  before  Christmas  she 
spent  in  sending  out  desperate  appeals  to  remote  families 
to  come.  But  when  the  morning  arrived,  she  and  Miss 
Molly  were  the  only  ones  there. 

The  young  theologian  appeared  a  little  before  the  ap 
pointed  time,  brought  in  the  motor  car  of  a  wealthy  friend 
of  his  own  age.  They  were  trying  to  make  a  record 
winter  trip,  and  were  impatient  at  the  delay  occasioned 
by  the  service.  When  they  saw  that  two  shabby  old 
women  constituted  the  congregation,  they  laughed  as  they 


344  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

stood  warming  their  hands  by  the  stove  and  waiting  for 
the  hour.  They  ignored  the  two  women,  chatting  lightly 
of  their  own  affairs.  It  seemed  that  they  were  on  their 
way  to  a  winter  house  party  to  which  the  young  clergy 
man-to-be  was  invited  on  account  of  his  fine  voice — an 
operetta  by  amateurs  being  one  of  the  gayeties  to  which 
they  looked  forward. 

Miss  Abigail  and  Miss  Molly  were  silent  in  their  rusty 
black,  Miss  Molly's  soft  eyes  red  with  restrained  tears, 
Miss  Abigail's  face  like  a  flint. 

"  A  pretty  place,  this  village  is,"  said  the  motorist  to 
the  minister.  "  I  have  visited  the  Ellerys  here.  Really 
charming  in  summer  time — so  utterly  deserted  and  peace 
ful."  He  looked  out  of  the  window  speculatively. 
"  Rather  odd  we  should  be  passing  through  it  to-day. 
There's  been  a  lot  of  talk  about  it  in  our  family  lately." 

"  How  so?"  asked  the  minister,  beginning  cautiously 
to  unwind  the  wrapping  from  around  his  throat. 

"  Why,  my  brother-in-law — Peg's  husband — don't  you 

remember,  the  one  who  sang  so  fearfully  flat  in "  He 

was  off  on  a  reminiscence  over  which  both  men  laughed 
loudly. 

Finally,  "  But  what  did  you  start  to  tell  me  about 
him?  "  asked  the  minister. 

"  I  forget,  I'm  sure.  What  was  it?  Oh,  yes;  he  owns 
those  print  mills  in  Johnsonville — hideous  place  for  Peg 
to  live,  that  town! — and  of  late  he's  been  awfully  put  out 
by  the  failure  of  his  water-power.  There's  not  much 
fall  there  at  the  best,  and  when  the  river's  low — and  it's 
low  most  all  the  time  nowadays — he  doesn't  get  power 
enough,  so  he  says,  to  run  a  churn !  He's  been  wonder 
ing  what  he  could  do  about  it,  when  doesn't  he  get  a  tip 


ADESTE  FIDELES!  345 

from  some  old  Rube  up  here  that,  above  this  village, 
there's  a  whopping  water-power — the  Winthrop  Branch. 
I  know  it — fished  it  lots  of  times.  He  didn't  take  any 
stock  in  it  of  course  at  first,  but,  just  on  the  chance,  he 
sent  his  engineer  up  here  to  look  it  over,  and,  by  Jove, 
it's  true.  It'll  furnish  twice  the  power  he's  had  in  John- 
sonville  lately." 

"  Seems  queer,"  said  the  minister  a  little  skeptically, 
"  that  nobody's  ever  thought  of  it  before." 

"  Well,  /  said  that,  but  Pete  says  that  his  engineer  tells 
him  that  there  are  lots  of  such  unknown  water-powers 
in  the  East.  Nobody  but  farmers  live  near  'em,  you  see." 

The  minister  was  but  mildly  interested.  "  I  thought 
the  cost  of  transmitting  power  was  so  great  it  didn't  pay 
for  any  water-force  but  Niagara." 

"  He  isn't  going  to  carry  the  power  to  Johnsonville. 
He's  going  to  bring  his  mill  here.  A  lot  of  his  operators 
come  from  around  here  and  most  of  'em  have  kept  their 
old  homes,  so  there  won't  be  any  trouble  about  keeping 
his  help.  Besides,  it  seems  the  old  hayseed  who  wrote 
him  about  it  owned  the  land,  and  offered  him  land,  water- 
power,  right  of  way — anything! — free,  just  to  'help  the 
town '  by  getting  the  mill  up  here.  That  bespeaks  the 
materialistic  Yankee,  doesn't  it  ? — to  want  to  spoil  a  quiet 
little  Paradise  like  this  village  with  a  lot  of  greasy  mill- 
hands." 

The  minister  looked  at  his  watch.  "  I  think  I'll  begin 
the  service  now.  There's  no  use  waiting  for  a  congrega 
tion  to  turn  up."  He  felt  in  one  pocket  after  the  other 
with  increasing  irritation.  "  Pshaw !  I've  left  my  eye 
glasses  out  in  the  car."  The  two  disappeared,  leaving 
the  vestibule  echoing  and  empty. 


346  HILLSBORO  PEOPLE 

For  a  moment  the  two  women  did  not  speak.     Then 
Miss  Molly  cast  herself  upon  her  old  friend's  bosom,  j 
"  They're  coming  back !  "  she  cried.    "  Annie  and  her  chil- ! 
dren!" 

Miss  Abigail  stared  over  her  head.     "They  are  all 
coming  back,"  she  said,  "  and — we  are  ready  for  them. 
The  library's  ready — the  school  is  ready—      "^she  got  up' 
and  opened  the  door  into  the  great,  cold,  lofty  church, 
"  and "     They  looked  in  silence  at  the  empty  pews. 

"  Next  Christmas !  "  said  Miss  Molly.  "  Next  Christ 
mas " 

The  young  minister  bustled  in,  announcing  as  he  came, 
"  We  will  open  the  service  by  singing  hymn  number  forty- 
nine." 

He  sat  down  before  the  little  old  organ  and  struck 
a  resonant  chord. 

"  Oh,  come,  all  ye  faithful!  " 

his  full  rich  voice  proclaimed,  and  then  he  stopped  short, 
startled  by  a  great  cry  from  Miss  Abigail.  Looking  over 
his  shoulder,  he  saw  that  the  tears  were  streaming  down 
her  face.  He  smiled  to  himself  at  the  sentimentality  of 
old  women  and  turned  again  to  the  organ,  relieved  that 
his  performance  of  a  favorite  hymn  was  not  to  be  marred 
by  cracked  trebles.  He  sang  with  much  taste  and  expres 
sion. 

"  Oh,  come,  all  ye  faithful!  " 

he  chanted  lustily, 

••  Joyful  and  triumphant! " 


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